After failing to lift his sunken X-Wing out of the swamp, Luke tells Yoda that the ship was too big. Yoda criticizes Luke’s thinking and explains more about the Force to him.
Part of that teaching includes Yoda explaining that “Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.”
While Yoda was teaching Luke something very different from Christian teaching, we know we are above the animals of creation and that there is more to us than our physical bodies. We have a soul and a mind.
Psalm 8:4-8 asks and answers a critical question. “What is man that You [God] are mindful of him, and the son of man that You care for him? Yet You have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.”
This passage reaffirms Genesis 1:26, when God creates humanity.
When explaining the greatest commandment, Jesus responded in Matthew 22:37, saying, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”
Jesus clearly shows that we have a heart, soul, and mind.
When facing the Gnostics, who believed that matter was evil (aka this crude matter), Paul dealt with them in Philippians 2:7 by stating, “but [Jesus] emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.”
We are more than our physical bodies, but God created our physical bodies, and they have value. They are not “crude.”
How will we live fully today as the amazing creation we are?
