“Yet in My Flesh I Shall See God” – Job 19:26
Chili con carne is chili with meat. The Latin of the Apostles’ Creed confesses that we believe in a carnis resurrectionem. A resurrection of meat! That is, what God raises from the dead on the Last Day is not just some piece of you, but the whole of you, including your body. Especially your body.
When God created you, He didn’t just make you a soul or a spirit. He made you with a body – He put some meat on you! One of the oldest heresies (false teachings) out there is that God is somehow less than pleased or less than interested in the meat–aspect of you.
That kind of thinking leads to all sorts of mischief. People could conclude then that it really doesn’t matter what they do with their body. St. Paul had to confront this dangerous thinking in the people of Corinth. He reminded them about the importance of their bodies: “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own. You were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” (1 Cor. 6:19-20) You see, God really does care if we take our bodies and sexually join them to people we are not married to; he really does care if we torture or abuse our bodies as if they were somehow of no consequence.
He cares about such things because He has great plans for that body. He is going to raise it from the grave (John 5:25-29)! He is going to make it indestructible (1 Cor. 15:42)! He is going to stuff it full of glory, so that it literally shines (Matt 13:43)!
We can know this with absolute certainty not only because God’s Word tells us so, but also because He has provided us a sneak-preview of our own future. It’s called the Transfiguration. Read about it in Matt 17:1-9. There Jesus was, shining with all the glory that is His as the Eternal Son of the Father, and He was shining that glory in and through the flesh, the flesh He had taken as His own from His mother’s inviolate womb (a miracle, by the way, that we call the incarnation – the en-meat-ment of God!).
He came to do the exact same for your flesh! That’s why He took on flesh and blood for you! That’s why He went to the cross, carrying in His own flesh, your sin and the sin of the world! That’s why He was raised again - raised in His flesh! Think how adamant He was about that: “See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” (Luke 24:39) It was the carnis, the meat of Jesus, that was raised from the dead in glory – and He promises to do the exact same for you.
He makes that promise yours every time He puts His very real Body and Blood into your very real body and soul: “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:54).
Chili con carne. Chili with meat. Carnis resurrectionem. Resurrection of the meat, of the flesh, of the skin and bones. So now you know why we speak these powerful words over the dead meat we bury in our cemeteries: “May God the Father who created this body; May God the Son who by His precious blood redeemed this body together with the soul; May God the Holy Ghost, who by Baptism sanctified this body to be His temple - keep these remains until the Day of Resurrection of all flesh. Amen!” That meat is going to live again – forever, indestructible, and shining with God’s glorious light!
