Reflection: Longing for the perfect body

The trait of sin was so potent and its deadly consequences so tragic, no wonder humanity and our world are described as dark.

Some shades of black appear so dense it’s like looking into a void. Artists use black to express all sorts of things: power, weightiness, silence, mystery, gloom. I more often use it as a background to intensify colour. And that’s exactly what happens when, set against the angst of creation, the perfect plan of God is beamed. ‘Corrupt versus holy.’ It blazes all the more splendidly! A plan to restore the image of God ‘in true righteousness and holiness’. (Ephesians 4:24)

The plan requires a perfect body.

(I’ve wished for one of those! …don’t we all.)

And the plan requires perfect-body broken.

Generations of Jews were at pains to raise or purchase the most pitch-perfect animal,

that could then be offered on their behalf…time and again…and again…and again.

Set against a black background, these broken, bloody bodies were brilliant.

Prayer:

I’m pausing in heady anticipation.   

This vision of sacrifices in a black void—it’s costly, it’s messy, it’s ceaseless…  

It’s beautiful, faithful God,   

as a foreshadowing of your New Covenantal, renewed bodies in the true image of God.   

Pure white on pitch-black.