232. Why Christ died young
232. WHY CHRIST DIED YOUNG
Was there a reason why Christ died so young, at thirty-three? Was that accidental?
Christ willed to suffer while yet young for three reasons. First of all, to commend the more His love by giving up His life for us when He was in His most perfect state of life. Secondly, because it was not becoming for Him to show any decay of nature nor to be subject to disease. . . . Thirdly, that by dying and rising at an early age Christ might exhibit beforehand in His own person the future condition of those who rise again (III,46,9).
Nothing in God’s world is an accident and random from the viewpoint of the divine Author, although some things are accidental rather than essential to other things. In a work of art there is a reason for everything, and everything is a work of divine art.
St. Thomas discovers three of these reasons. (There are usually more than one in the divine economy. In fact, there are always more than we discover: “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy, Horatio.”)
(1) To give Himself maximally, He gave Himself when He was in the best state of life, with the most power and freedom to give, so that there would be the most human value in both the subject (the Giver) and the object (the Gift), as compared with, e.g., infancy, childhood, or decrepitude. He always gives maximally, not minimally.
(2) His soul so ruled His body that He never fell into disease, although the Gospels say He did get tired and hungry. He was “like us in all things except sin” (Heb 4:15). He assumed “flesh”, i.e., fallen, mortal human nature, not human nature with perfect preternatural gifts such as it was in unfallen Adam. But it was perfect flesh. The lambs and oxen that were sacrificed in the Old Testament as a foreshadowing and symbol of Christ, Who was the only perfect offering, had to be perfect and “without blemish” (Ex 12:5; 1 Pet 1:19). Once again, He is a maximalist, not a minimalist.
(3) In the resurrection every one of the blessed in Heaven will have a perfect body. (“Perfect” does not mean “identical”, of course; individuality will be preserved and enhanced, not abolished or diminished.) St. Thomas opined that this perfection means that our resurrection bodies will be like the body of a thirty—three—year—old, since thirty—three is the time of perfect maturity with—out the beginning of decrepitude. He realized, of course, that years are not measured in Heaven, so he knew that his number was symbolic rather than literal.
All that we know about our future bodies, we know through Christ’s Resurrection. He showed us not only perfect God but also perfect Man, and He showed us a full, concrete example of perfect Man in His own resurrected self. That is the glory that awaits us. C. S. Lewis writes that “these small, perishable bodies are given to us as ponies are given to schoolboys. We must learn to manage—not that we may be free from bodies altogether but that we may be trained to ride those stallions which await us even now, impatiently neighing in the King’s stables” (Miracles).