Usually when I go into a charity shop it’s to have a look at the books. On this occasion though something on the clothes rack caught my eye. I think it was the colour. A striking blue going on turquoise. I had never seen jeans quite like that and they were brand new, with labels attached, right size and only £6. 75. So the books were forgotten. The brand wasn’t one I was familiar with so a look online and the discovery that if I were to buy the jeans on the high street they would cost me £110. Well, that’s the kind of charity shop you get in North Berwick.
Needless to say this story has been told quite a few times but not as much as the jeans have been worn. You might say they are my favourite. Sadly they are beginning to show the passage of the years. The colour has faded and wear and tear is evident. (Getting to the ‘fonti’ stage ie. fonti bits.) They’ve been sewn and patched but it looks as if the future is recycling. No matter how attached we get to ‘stuff’ the day comes when we have to let go.
Some people have happier stories to tell of stuff that has seen better days being repaired. BBC’s The Repair Shop has a group of expert craftsmen who use their skills to restore treasured antiques and heirlooms. It’s often very moving to see the impact of the restored item on the owner. Many other tv programs have restoration as their theme: gardens, rooms, buildings. There is obviously an enormous appeal in seeing something that seems to have come to the end being given a new lease of life. It remains a repair job however and could very easily slip back into a less than happy state.
This is very different from the restoration that we are promised in Christ. Beyond the experience of death we are promised renewal of body, mind and spirit. Paul turned to nature to find an adequate image that would throw light on this. In 1 Corinthians 15: 42-44 he speaks of the body as a seed:
‘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.’
Something completely new emerges from the old, battered, worn-out personality that is ours, equipping us for life in the Eternal World. Another image from nature not used by Paul but surely helpful is of the butterfly emerging from the chrysalis. Leaving behind the dried-up husk and taking flight into a new experience of life.
Jesus Himself is the proto-type of this restored life. When he appeared to His followers after the Resurrection he was not immediately recognisable. He was somehow changed. He seemed to appear and disappear in a mysterious way. Locked doors and walls appeared to be no barrier to him. He was in possession of the body raised imperishable, raised in glory, raised in power, a spiritual body geared for life in the Eternal World. And this is what we are promised. Paul speaks of Jesus as ‘the firstborn among many brothers’ (Romans 8: 29). The Risen Lord is presented to us as our destiny in the life to come.
It’s not easy for us to conceive of a life without weakness, pain, disease or sin but this is what is involved in the Church’s faith in the resurrection of the body. I was working on a sermon on this theme some years ago when a friend who had been unwell phoned. ‘Have you got anything to say to me about the resurrection of the body,’ I said. He replied: ‘Only that I’m longing for it.‘ That’ll do me for the time being.
