We are already in union with God. Symeon the New Theologian (949-1022), a saint and mystic revered to this day by Eastern Christians, wrote some words that point beautifully to this “force field” that we call the Body of Christ. It is a living organism created by those who live in love, much more than any mere religious organization.
Symeon describes this cosmic embodiment created by God’s grace and our response, naming the divine union that all the Bible is forever inviting and edging us toward. He is sharing his own experience of his divine embodiment. Here, in Symeon’s hymn, scripture has become spirituality. This prayer, religious verse, in its twenty-seven mystical lines honestly say it all.
We awaken in Christ’s body
as Christ awakens our bodies,
and my poor hand is Christ. He enters
my foot, and is infinitely me.
I move my hand, and wonderfully
My hand becomes Christ, becomes all of Him
(for God is indivisibly
Whole, seamless in His Godhood).
I move my foot, and at once
He appears in a flash of lightning.
Do my words seem blasphemous?
Then
Open your heart to him,
We wake up inside Christ’s body
Where all our body, allover,
Every most hidden part of it,
Is realized in joy as Him,
And He makes us utterly real,
And everything that is hurt, everything
That seemed to us dark, harsh, shameful,
Maimed, ugly, irreparably
Damaged, is in Him transformed
And recognized as whole, as lovely,
And radiant in His light.
We awaken as the Beloved
In every last part of our body.
-by Symeon the New Theologian
Smitten With Goodness 