How to expect God’s reign to come : from Jesus’ through the ecclesial to the cosmic body

摘要

This study seeks to articulate the universality of the eschatological expectation, in its specificallyChristian form, by interpreting it from the perspective of a radical embodiment. This can beunderstood in a twofold manner. Firstly, the mysterious reality of the eschatological reign ofGod is rooted in – and thus can be more adequately grasped through the lens of – Jesus’ ownbody seen as distinct yet not separate from his risen body and, mutatis mutandis, from hisextended body, both ecclesial and cosmic. Secondly, for the eschatological expectation to belived out in an incarnational way, it must be ‘enfleshed’ in actions aimed at social and ecologicalliberation.The article consists of four sections. Firstly, we explain in what sense body – and morespecifically Jesus’ body – is used in our analysis as a hermeneutic key to notions such as ‘risenbody’, ‘spiritual body’, ‘extended body’, ‘social body’, ‘ecclesial body’, ‘cosmic body’, basar/kolbasar (‘flesh’/‘all flesh’), and ‘life’. Then, the universality of the eschatological expectation isbeing articulated on two levels, namely, (1) with regard to the social, and in particular theecclesial, body, and (2) with regard to the cosmic body, with ecological implications inherent insuch perspective. Finally, we close the loop by briefly revisiting the notion of Jesus’ body.