Day 24
Tuesday, December 20
Ana Yee
When you consider God’s work of salvation in your life, what comes to mind? Do you think of an intangible — perhaps mysterious — experience of conversion? Or something as concrete and physical as the last food you ate? In today’s passage from Ezekiel, God speaks to a disobedient and exiled Israel, making a promise of salvation that reveals a profound reality: with God, the spiritual is physical and the physical is spiritual.
In verse 26, God tells Israel, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” Just a couple of verses later and in the same sequence of promises, he then says, “I will save you from all your uncleanness. […] I will increase the fruit of the trees and the crops of the field, so that you will no longer suffer disgrace among the nations because of famine” (v. 29-30, abbreviated). Notice how God’s statements of spiritual renewal are seamlessly connected to promises of physical salvation from famine! In God’s redemptive work in the world, the two cannot be separated.
Of course, the tight bond between God’s spiritual and physical salvation is personified in Jesus, our incarnate savior. Christ cared for the bodies of many, all the while reminding his disciples that such physical provisions pointed to the spiritual redemption he would accomplish in his death and resurrection. This Advent, as we contemplate Christ’s birth and promised second coming, consider — how has God been present with you, providing physical renewal in your embodied, incarnate life? Take time to notice his presence as you cook a meal, hug a friend, or go on a walk. How do such physical realities point to the spiritual renewal he has accomplished for us?
Ana lives in Lincoln, MA. She grew up at Park Street Church and came back last year at the end of her time in college. She currently works as a campus minister at Harvard and as a Park Street intern in the church’s archives. She is passionate about her family, poetry, history, and being outside in all kinds of places!