‘Christian faith is rooted in the physical’

Journeying towards the season of the Incarnation, the Rev Dr Richard Frazer links physical wellbeing to spiritual health.

AS we enter the season of the Incarnation, the time when heaven intersected with the earth and we Christians trust that the Divine nature took on humanity, ‘bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh’, as Adam put it when he rejoiced at the gift of a physical companion, I am often puzzled.

The story of Jesus is so earthy, so physical. From his birth in a stable, his earthly life, eating and drinking with his friends. Here was a man who spat in the dirt and made a paste with mud to heal a blind man, who walked in wilderness places to pray and prepare, who had compassion on those who were lame and covered in sores. Here was a man who suffered beating and scourging, the agony of the cross; and who appeared, physically, to his friends and showed them his wounds, lest they did not trust his resurrection.

What puzzles me is that it can sometimes seem that we have turned our faith into a purely intellectual exercise. Is it just about what is going on in our minds? We run the risk of overlooking the physical dimensions to our lives and the life of faith. Christian faith is rooted in the physical and the nativity story sets the tone for all that follows in the Jesus story. It is all so physical.

My wife is a counsellor and psychotherapist and one of the things I have learned from her over the years is how deeply connected our minds are to our bodies. How, as one of her books says, ‘the Body Remembers’. We all face challenges and we may get over them, but our bodies carry the traces of what we have suffered. As one of our poets put it, we ‘carry the marks of life upon us’.

At college, no one ever said to our cohort of aspiring ministers, ‘look after your body’. There was of course, plenty talk about taking rest, having a day off, but I look with envy at many spiritual practices around the world that include attention to the body as vital to spiritual nourishment. Many people find yoga, pilates, jogging, or just going to the gym, therapy for their souls as much as their bodies.

When Mary cradled her child and knew she needed to flee as a refugee from tyranny, this was a visceral, physical reality. It was human rage stirring up human fear; something our world knows all too well today. When Jesus took himself off to the wilderness, he wrestled with what it is to be human. When he took three of his friends to a mountain, they saw the full, awesome scope of his humanity. When he had a meal with the most hated man in Jericho, the hospitality was transformative. When he felt the crown of thorns pressing into his head and the nails piercing his hands and feet, all of this was profoundly physical, and the resurrection was physical too, life and flesh affirming.

Many people struggle to get their brains working without their feet moving too. I have become passionate about pilgrimage walking as a spiritual practice, recognising that the physical act of going out is also a going in, as John Muir put it. At our monthly ‘Refugio’ service in Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh, we spend the first period of the service concentrating on what we call a ‘Stilling’, sensing the tension we hold in our bodies and seeking to calm our bodies for encounter with the Spirit.

“ I look with envy at many spiritual practices around the world that include attention to the body as vital to spiritual nourishment.

A deeper connection between the physical and the spiritual has nourished my faith journey and the season of Christ’s incarnation reminds me that our bodies and our physical wellbeing is an essential part of our spiritual health. 

The Rev Dr Richard Frazer is minister at Edinburgh: Greyfriars.