Resurrection musings

Another Easter is in the history books. It is probably a little anti-climactic to discuss Easter after the fact (kind of like the Easter egg hunt that took place on Bethel's campus today). But I've never claimed to be ahead of the curve.

The resurrection of the body is an interesting topic to plumb. We quite often assume that it is the actual physical body itself that becomes re-animated at the resurrection. Certainly in the instance of Jesus's resurrection, there was no more body in the tomb (note the empty burial cloth in the photo).

We want there to be a connection between our physical bodies now and the resurrected bodies that are to come. Must there be? If not, then Jesus's "body" could have still been in the tomb when he was resurrected. But it gets complicated when we deal with others.

What about the resurrection of those who have been dead for thousands of years? There aren't many particles of their bodies left to animate. And a question that some Christians have given serious consideration to is: what if a guy fell overboard into the sea and was eaten by a fish; thus his body was incorporated into the fish's. Then someone else caught the fish and ate it, thus incorporating that flesh into his. At the resurrection, whose flesh will go to which resurrected person??

It seems to me that there is some sort of continuity. For instance, at the Transfiguration Jesus's regular body was transformed into the glorious one (the soma pneumatika?). It's not like his regular flesh was there too. But how do you maintain a continuity like that when all the material particles have disintegrated from the body?