During Christmas time, we celebrate the fact that the Second Person of the Trinity, the eternal Word of God, permanently took on a human body. This means that the problem of the “material” as such has been solved. The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (John 1:14).
But there are two problems to be solved, and we have to meditate on both of them. The first is the answer to Plato and all the Hellenists, who wanted the pure realm of mind and reason. The Incarnation is a thundering repudiation of that way of thinking. God loves matter—look how much of it He created. Look at the fact that He took on a material body.
But there is another problem, and Christians escaping the first one sometimes minimize the magnitude of this second one. The material world is fallen, and this means that we don’t just have to choose between spirit and matter (the first problem), but also between matter corrupted and matter redeemed. So when we hear that Jesus had a real, physical body, let us not rush to do a touchdown dance too hastily.
Paul tells us that our current bodies are “vile” (Phil. 3:21). He says that our outer man is decaying (2 Cor. 4:16). Even as he is assuring us of the glory of our future, material body, he is also telling us that the one we have now has some significant issues. It is characterized by corruption, dishonor, and weakness (1 Cor. 15:43). The Augustinian meditations begin with this indisputable fact. We may not always agree with every conclusion, but we must see the need for some kind of suspicion of the body—not because of what it is, but because of what it fell into.
So Christmas reminds us to avoid two errors. The first error is that of thinking that the future resurrection is a ghostly affair; it most certainly is not. The resurrection will be more solid than anything you have ever imagined. The second error is that of minimizing the depth of our material corruption, believing that our materiality did not need to be redeemed.