“For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (2 Cor 5:1).

Wear and tear are normal and cannot be avoided, even in the case of the human body. As we age, our body weakens, the joints pain, the skin wrinkles, and daily chores become more difficult. We realise it is time to leave the body to the dust it came from. This is an inevitable reality. On the path to degradation, frustration sets in as we need to depend on the help of others. First, to get things done, move from point A to point B, then rise from bed.

Paul, a tentmaker, uses the metaphor of tent, house, and building, referring to the human body. He likens the human body to a tent, a fragile and temporary dwelling. A tent undergoes wear and tear easily. However, the Christian hopes that as the physical body wears out like a tent, our spirit will move to an eternal and permanent house, our glorious body. He triumphantly said, “For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality” (1 Cor 15:53).

Paul’s physical body had been through a lot—arduous travel over in the sea and land, life in prisons more than once, starvation and the list goes on; in his own words: “by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labours, sleepless nights, hunger …” (2 Cor 6:4—5).

However, while his body took all these and the wearing set in earlier than it should, Paul held on to this hope in Christ—this tent will trade it for a permanent dwelling place in eternity.

Ageing graciously is the gift of God, but it requires a biblical view of the human body. How we take this regressive phase of old age depends on our hope in the Lord.