Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.

John predicts our place in the future saying,
      We are children of God,
      and it is not yet apparent what we will be,
          but we know when Jesus appears
                we will be like him,
                      for we will see him as he is (1 John 3:2). 

I have three comments on this amazing promise about our future makeover.  

First, we don’t know what Jesus looked like 2,000 years ago, or what he looks like today, or what he will look like when we see him at the end of the age. 

We do know that after his resurrection he had an almost-normal body: he walked, and talked, and barbecued fish on the seashore, and ate it. But other things he did weren’t so normal–like beaming himself away from his friends at Emmaus, and beaming himself into a house where the disciples had locked the doors. 

Forty days after his resurrection, Jesus said goodbye to the earth and sailed up to heaven and hasn’t been seen since. Unless you count the bright light that blinded Paul a sighting of Jesus. 

So I wonder: is Jesus still living in an almost-normal human body? Is his part of the Trinity confined forever to a house of flesh? 

My second comment is that Paul cautions against imagining what a resurrection body might look like. He emphasizes how different my new body will be, saying:
    The body that is sown is perishable,
          it is raised imperishable;
    it is sown in dishonor,
          it is raised in glory;
    it is sown in weakness,
          it is raised in power;
    it is sown a natural body,
          it is raised a spiritual body (1 Cor 15:42-44).       

Looking at my classic 1954 vintage body to predict what my resurrection body will be like, is like predicting an oak tree by looking at an acorn. A small brown nut, rotting on the ground, becomes a magnificent tree. What begins as squirrel food becomes an elevated playground for birds and insects. 

As the Apostle’s Creed says, I believe in the resurrection of the body.  When this body is consumed by maggots or cremated with fire, Jesus will be preparing a new life and a new body for me. 

John says Jesus is the pattern of our newness. We will be like Jesus when we see him as he is. I add, we will see him with new eyes, not with these cataract-distorted eyes that send imperfect images to a dying brain.  

My third comment is to agree with John’s statement, “Whoever has this hope purifies himself, just as Jesus is pure” (1 John 3:3). In our bodies of dust, we do daily deeds of prayer and worship and good works that prepare us for a new body and a new vision of Christ and a new life in his kingdom. Welcome to the future. 

Let’s pray. 

O Jesus, John’s promise resonates in our hearts. We want to see you and to be like you. 

Meanwhile, as Paul says,
    Outwardly we waste away,
      but inwardly we are renewed every day (2 Cor 4:16). 

O Jesus, renew our hope. Teach us to be faithful in this flesh-bound body, so that when at last we see you face to face, we may receive new life in a new body.

Amen. 

I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.  

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