Christmas and the Goodness of the Human Body

The human person is truly a unique creature: unlike angels who are pure spirit, we have bodies which eat, sleep, excrete waste, and procreate. Unlike animals which act on instinct to fulfill bodily cravings, we have immortal souls and intellects with which we know and love things, concepts, and persons, and possess the will to abstain from bodily pleasures.

The human person is a wonder: he is a creature both of earth and Heaven, made in the image and likeness of his God (Gen. 1:26), a descriptor that is attributed neither to the animals nor the angels.

Too often, however, we fail to recognize the sacredness of the physical part of our personhood. Whether it's despising our masculinity or femininity, or thinking we have the absolute right to fulfill physical desires at all costs, this confusion of the truth of our bodies is ultimately a spiritual war that has waged since the fall of man.

The Incarnate Deity...inevitable?

It has been debated in past centuries whether or not the Second Person of the Trinity, the Son, would still have taken on human nature even if Adam and Eve did not sin. We know that God could have simply snapped His proverbial fingers and immediately wiped out the fault that the first parents incurred, which transmits like a disease through generations, and everyone would be saved. The Son of God certainly would not have had to become man and die a brutal death on a cross to pay man's debt to the Father. He can do anything He wishes to fulfill His plan.

However, one side of the debate believed that whether or not Adam and Eve sinned, the Second Person of the Trinity would have taken on flesh anyway, and become a part of the human race (while still being fully God, of course).

The reasoning perhaps is the same as if Adam and Eve fell: humans come to know better the things of Heaven through the stuff of earth.

The Son is the One through whom the Father creates all things (John 1); and as the perfect image of His Father, He communicates Him to these creatures of His who are both body and soul and experience reality primarily through their five senses.

If God would become incarnate even if man did not sin, what does it mean for us? What does it say about our bodies, that too often we condemn and despise? What does it say about God Himself? Simple: our bodies, solidified in our masculinity or femininity, have incomprehensible dignity. God deemed it so from the very beginning by creating humankind as male and female, in His image and likeness; and after the Fall, uniting His divinity to humanity in order to redeem all that is wounded in ourselves.

Letting Christ become Incarnate in our Wounds

When Adam and Eve sinned, they saw their naked bodies and felt ashamed. Sin is ultimately the disintegration of the human person. The final fruit of sin is death (James 1:15), which is literal separation of the body and soul. However, whether we realize it or not, we mentally, emotionally, and spiritually separate our bodies and souls throughout our lives. We forget the glory of our personhood, and our identities as man or woman. This happens when we commit, particularly, sins of the flesh. Most often these sins stem from trauma--whether overt or subtle--in the crucial stages of childhood development. These are places within our hearts where the truth about our identities as sons or daughters have been distorted, where true love and goodness has been withheld, thus leading to interior disintegration. Unfortunately, it is not enough to will ourselves to follow the commandments, or attempt to convince ourselves of God's love. Because of the fallen world, we have all suffered trauma to our identities as male and female: first through inherited original sin, through the actions of others, and finally the sins we commit ourselves.

Retired Catholic therapist, Dr. Bob Schuchts, discusses this reality in his books Be Healed and Be Restored. When love is deprived or severely distorted in the critical, early stages of our development, these traumatic experiences--whether overt abuse or "subtle" hurts--can significantly impact our treatment of ourselves and others later in life. We have a twisted view of our identities as sons or daughters, and act in a way that is not in line with the truth of our personhood. On one end, we inordinately grasp for approval from others and try to find our identity in them; in graver, and unfortunately common cases, we try to fill those wounds with things that are not in accord with God's design for our bodies (i.e. premarital sex, viewing pornography, contraception, etc.), calling it "natural" and even necessary. In another extreme end of the spectrum, it's viewing ourselves with contempt and shame, sometimes committing acts of self-mutilation (anything from cutting, to even widely accepted practices of procedures to "change" our sex).

The antidote is Christ Himself, He who became one of us and dignified our nature with His divinity. The only "way out" of our brokenness, is for Him to go in to them. The solution is not to sew fig leaves for ourselves and hide as Adam and Eve did; rather, it is the opposite. It is to let Him in to the places where love was denied or severely twisted in us, most often in our earliest days. The darkest, deepest wounds which cause us unbearable shame. If we're open to the Holy Spirit, even in those moments when we didn't think He would be there, we can come to see that He actually was, and continues to be there. He is not scandalized by the violations--whether minor or major, caused by others or ourselves--that make us despise ourselves and commit acts which are not in accord with our nature and dignity.

This is, after all, the same God who decided to be born in a dirty stable, in the midst of animals, in a long-suffering world that even sought to kill Him from the beginning. He was there all along. And when we allow ourselves to truly experience Him in those wounds, we can all the more cultivate virtue.

Chastity: The Virtuous "Mean" and Integration of the Person

The word chastity often evokes the concept of a "don't-do-this" mentality. However there is so much more to this incredible virtue. I like to define it as: living according to the nature and reality of our relationships with ourselves and others. It is not merely about sex; it's taking our desires to be seen, known, and loved, and to give love, and appropriating them correctly to the different relationships in our lives: with our opposite and same sex friends, our spouse, family members, etc. This is living in conformity with nature, and reality--ultimately God's will and design.

However, well-meaning Christians can focus too much on the physical aspect of chastity. Unintentionally, this mentality also separates our bodies from the rest of our personhood. This hyper-focus can eventually lead to unhealthy levels of shame and contempt for the way God designed our sexed bodies. It treats our bodies as obstacles to God's will and the perfection of our souls, rather than a living image of God's glory and a means to worship Him.

On another end of the spectrum, this obsession can turn into the idolization of marriage, and sex within marriage as the highest point of the Christian life (news flash, it's not). When these expectations fall short, the results can be devastating, sometimes leading to health issues, abuse, or ironically, divorce. And it springboards one back into a cycle of shame and contempt.

Chastity is ultimately about integrating all parts of the human person: body, mind, soul. By first allowing Jesus to heal our root wounds, we can begin to act according to the dignity we have been bestowed. This means not despising our bodies, but instead coming to see the goodness of our masculinity and femininity; This also means realizing that we are not entitled to fulfill every single passion whenever they arise, and practicing self-control. Humility must be the basis for this virtue, as it is the root of all virtues: for it is seeing one's self in light of God and His designs...nothing more, nothing less. This is what Christ and the Virgin Mary exemplify, as the New Adam and the New Eve. Remember once again that in taking on flesh and becoming an atoning sacrifice for mankind, Christ specifically became a male, choosing to be born of a woman (Gal. 4:4). They are the parents of the redeemed human race. If our sexed bodies are inherently evil, then the Second Person of the Trinity would not have incarnated as a male, and come into the world through a female. In His plan of salvation,

the Divine is wed to the human, in order to bring the latter up from the ash heap into the heights of heavenly glory.

Christ and His Blessed Mother exemplify living according to nature and reality of their relationships. For them specifically, this meant being free from physical relations as they were consecrated entirely to God. Yet this enabled them to give themselves completely to God, and to humankind in a way that no other human being could, and will ever do.

Moving forward

To live and treat ourselves according to God's design is a lifelong endeavor that we cannot do by ourselves. It takes the grace of God, and a community of trusted people to help us be re-integrated. It is surely a long and arduous journey, with many expected mistakes along the way. But it's the only way to living in the freedom God intended for mankind to live.

There is no shame and condemnation in Christ (Rom. 8:1). Whatever is causing you to hide, and despise yourself is not your identity. This Christmas, let Him in to the stable of your hearts...He is not afraid of the messiness and the darkness within.