More Josefinology

Josefina comes over to my big brown chair and just perches herself on the edge, which is her unspoken way of saying, "scoot over." Then she sits herself in the small space that I can still clear for her. She still fits in that spot, which means she's the only one of the children who can sit on my chair -- and only when I'm in it.

The other kids aren't really jealous, because they're too old to sit "with Daddy" (well, I do let Teresa sit on the arm every so often). What they would really like is to sit in the chair by themselves, but I have forbidden it. We've had this chair for over three years and we're trying to make it last. That means it has to be a "no fly zone," reserved strictly for me... and little people who are sneaky and a little spoiled by Daddy and, above all, implacably determined.

Josefina is six now, but still so little. Nevertheless there's a lot going through her little head. So the other day she sits next to me and says...

Josefina: "When we get our bodies back, will we have bones?"

She's talking about our resurrected bodies, of course, that are reunited with our souls at the end of history, when Jesus establishes God's kingdom in all its fullness. She thinks about this stuff -- body and soul and death and how it all "works." Even when she was four she had questions like this.

But this particular question I don't understand. Bones? Why wouldn't we have bones?

Me: "Of course we'll have bones. We'll have our whole human bodies." 

In fact, she does have something very specific in mind.

Her: "But how will we be able to go through walls if we have bones?"

Haha! Interesting question. Jojo's has obviously learned (in Atrium perhaps?) about that quality of the resurrected and glorified body that is called subtlety. Our bodies will be like the risen body of Jesus, who passed unhindered into the upper room on Easter, who "came and stood among" the disciples even though they were hiding behind locked doors. She's trying to figure out how that could be done. Maybe without bones the body might be squshy enough to get through. But what about bones?

Me: "Oh no, that won't be a problem. Our bodies will be greater than any physical objects in the New Creation. We will be transformed people living in a transformed world."

Her: "So we can start walking and just go anywhere?"

Me: "We can go anywhere right away, just by wanting to." Now, of course, we're talking about the property of agility.

Her: "But can we walk anywhere?"

Me: "Well, if we want to walk somewhere, sure. We can walk."

Her: "And keep walking?"

Me: "Wherever we want."

Her: "And we can go through anything?"

Me: "Anything, if its God's will."

Her: "But we don't go through other people!"

Hmmm. That's another question. Will we have some kind of corporeal circumincession, some communial indwelling that involves also (in some way) our glorified bodies "in Christ," such that there will be a unity that preserves the uniqueness of each one? Something completely unimaginable? I can't think of it without feeling like I'm venturing into the weird zone. I don't know. Images fail me utterly. But they are never adequate, because "eye hath not seen...." 

Josefina certainly can't imagine it.

"Not other people," she says decisively. "That would be disgusting!"

It seems like a big mix up, in our minds, which is gross to imagine.

Even worse if we have bones!