Day 1 - Embodiment & the Bible

“The LORD passed in front of Moses, calling out, ‘Yahweh! The LORD! The God of compassion and mercy! I am slow to anger and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness.’” (Exodus 34:6, NLT)

“Jesus traveled through all the towns and villages of that area, teaching in the synagogues and announcing the Good News about the Kingdom. And he healed every kind of disease and illness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” (Matthew 9:35-36, NLT)

“Then Jesus called his disciples and told them, ‘I feel sorry for these people. They have been here with me for three days, and they have nothing left to eat. I don’t want to send them away hungry, or they will faint along the way.’” (Matthew 15:31, NLT)

I’m curious: When you think about connecting with your body, what happens inside? Does your gut tighten? Do you feel numb? Does an inner critic tell you this is bad or that your body is bad?

It’s common to have strong gut reactions to connecting with our bodies. Sometimes this feels scary, foreign, or confusing. We might also wonder if connecting with our bodies is honoring to God and Biblically sound. So, to start off, we’re going to slow down with some beautiful passages that speak to who God is, anchoring in embodied language that reveals God’s tender compassion to us. Along with demonstrating embodied language, these verses help us remember just how tender God’s heart is toward us, something that can be incredibly helpful to remember when we might be used to simply viewing our body as bad, not deserving compassion or kindness.

So, let’s take a little tour of a couple of my favorite passages . . .

Way back in the book of Exodus, in the epic interaction between God and Moses on Mount Sinai, God’s name is proclaimed—by God—starting with a Hebrew word we often translate as “compassionate” or “merciful.” The root noun of this word actually means “womb,” bringing with it nuances of tender, maternal care. There is something about the tenderness of this compassion that we know through the embodiment of it in people who were created in God’s image. And before you keep reading on, let’s pause right here. I’m curious: How does that sit with you? I wonder if it feels exciting, scary, or impossible to think about God’s compassion in this way.

This embodied tenderness is lived out in the person of Christ, who was so moved by compassion that he felt it in the core of his body. In the Gospels, one of the Greek words that’s repetitively used to describe Christ being moved with compassion literally means to be so moved that you feel it in your innards, viscerally in your internal organs. And I don’t know about you, but this brings these stories to life in a new way for me. I especially love how Christ feels the depth of this compassion in his body while healing and holding concern for the bodies of those around him, not wanting to send the crowds around him away hungry.

As you sit with the Scriptures listed at the beginning of today’s devotional, I’d love to invite you to be curious about how this interplay of language, embodiment, and God’s compassion might help us as we reflect on God creating the whole of our embodied being. How might starting with God’s compassion shift how you slow down and connect with your body? How might you want to bring God’s compassion with you into each day of this devotional series?