The New York Times reports that Spanish prostitution rings have begun operating out of border towns along the Pyrenees. They cater to tourists who cross over from France on the weekends. To staff their stables, these sex-traffickers recruit young women from eastern Europe by promising legitimate jobs then making them sex-slaves to pay for transportation and upkeep. Police recently rescued a Romanian teenager on whose wrist her owners had tattooed a barcode that tallied her remaining debt: $2,500.
And when He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet.
The church rightly rejoices in the proof of Christ’s post-resurrection palpability, what theologian N. T. Wright dubs the “trans-physicality” of the risen body. When he flashes his scars and scarfs a fish stick we rejoice in proof that the Kingdom of Heaven holds hope for embodied life.
What we sometimes miss is the fact that scars hurt and eating implies hunger.
In John’s vision of the New Jerusalem the Tree of Life bears fruit to eat and leaves that heal. (Rev 22.2) Whatever we make of seven-headed, ten-horned dragons and apocalyptic horsemen, the line from the resurrection to the Revelation seems to run along the path of human need. Perhaps the glory of Heaven is not that we will never be hungry, but that hunger will never lack food. Perhaps the joy of eternity is not that no one will be hurt, but that everyone will have power to heal.
When human beings merchandise one another with price tags pricked into women’s wrists, we need to see the nail prints in the hands of Our Lord. When an empty belly drives the homeless to endure an empty life, we must hear Christ ask us, “Have you anything here to eat?”
Jesus Loves Everybody; Jesus Loves Every Body,
Doug
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