Jesus was fully male. Most importantly, for our discussion here, Jesus had and has a male body. Since His ascension (and even before) He has given us His very Body, of which we have the privilege to become a part of. Yet His Body, the Church, is everywhere referred to in feminine terms as She, Her, Mother, Bride, etc. How is it that we can talk of the Body of Christ both as male and female?

Let us recall God’s creating Eve from the rib of Adam. Eve was taken from Adam’s side; her body was literally Adam’s body; Adam could look upon Eve and truly say that she is “flesh of my flesh.” Despite this commonness of body, there was, nevertheless, male Adam and female Eve. (In fact, what bodily differences did exist, existed to allow for the becoming of one flesh, so they could actually be more unified and of one body than if they did not possess those differences). So it is with the new Adam, Christ. The old Adam’s flesh was male, and the new Adam’s flesh is male. The old Adam’s bride was truly flesh of his flesh, and the new Adam’s bride is truly flesh of his flesh. The old Adam’s bride was truly female, and the new Adam’s bride is truly female.

St. Paul touches on these issues in the famous passage of Ephesians 5:25-32:
“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.”

Here we see that the mystery of the unity between Christ and His church is bound up in the unity between husband and wife. Each pair becomes and is one flesh, and to love the other is to love one’s own body precisely because the other is one’s own body and self. Yet these unions are without confusion between bride and bridegroom. While husband and wife become truly one flesh, we never forget who is the husband and who is the wife. So it is with Christ and the church that while we are one body we do not forget that Christ is the bridegroom and we are the bride.

Of course much more could be said of the passage from Ephesians and of the imagery being discussed, but I’ll leave that for you to meditate on and, hopefully, for us all to experience.