2 Corinthians 5:1-5: a reflection

Paul calls this body a tent, and the word is chosen with care. A tent is temporary, thin-walled, easily worn, never meant to be permanent. We know that if this earthly tent is taken down, he says, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens. The tent will come down; the building is already ours.

Notice how honestly Paul speaks about living in the tent: we groan, he says, being burdened. He does not pretend the aches and limits and slow wearing-out of the body are nothing. But notice what he longs for. Not simply to be rid of the body, unclothed, but to be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. The hope is not less of us, but more, mortality overwhelmed not by death but by life.

And he gives the reason we can be sure of it: God has given us the Spirit as a down payment, a first installment guaranteeing the rest. If you are feeling the tent wearing thin, tired, aging, ill, aware of your own mortality, Paul meets you honestly. Yes, we groan in this tent. But it is a tent, not the house; and the Spirit already at work in you is God's own guarantee that the eternal building is coming, where mortality is swallowed up by life.