This, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh…
Genesis 2:23
Here we read that the first use of human language is a poem expressing the joy of the one-flesh union of husband and wife. That alone is awesome to consider.
However, in Eph 5:32, Paul teaches that, ultimately, the one-flesh union enacted in Gen 2:23 is a picture of the far more fundamental union of Christ and the Church. Adam and Eve are made one *because* Christ and the Church are, from all eternity, made one through the Mystery of the Passion.
Christ—like Adam—is cast into a deep sleep on the cross, the sleep of Death. And, while He sleeps, His Bride is drawn from His side (one of the many symbols of the blood and water from Christ seems to be Eucharist and Baptism as the constituent elements of the Church), such that—with His awakening—she might be brought to Him and united to Him in one Flesh and one Spirit for all time.
Indeed, the words with which the First Adam opens the first creation at the Beginning are the same words with which the Last Adam will consummate the New Creation at the End.
“This, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh…”
See the the blood-washed Eve drawn from the side of her Lord on the tree (Gen 2:21; John 19:34)..
See the True Adam raised up from sleep in the Garden of the New Creation and His Bride—the Church—gathered to Him from all peoples, tribes, nations, and languages (Rev 22:1-4)…
See the Bride herself, clothed in the wedding gown of the redeemed cosmos, radiant with all the glory of the reconciled creation (Rev.21:9-21), led with gladness before the King in His Beauty (Ps 45:13-15; Isa 33:17)
And see all of creation rise up to rejoice a the union for which the universe was made—the one flesh union of Heaven and Earth, of God and Humanity, of Christ and the Church (Rom 8:21; Isa 55:12-13).
See this moment—achieved in Christ’s Passion, consummated at the end of all things—and seeing it, hear with wonder the words our God speaks as He extends His hand to the Bride—to us—and so gathers her, and all things in her, into the nuptial joy of the eschaton:
This, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh…
So, in today’s image, I’ve tried to visualize this fusion of the beginning and the end in Christ—picturing the consummation of history in the union of Christ and the Church as a recapitulation of the inauguration of history at the union of Adam and Eve.
Most clearly, the Bride—the Church—is shown flowing from Christ’s side, the blood and water of His Passion purifying His people and raising them to new life as His Bride.
On Jesus’ left side we see the stone of the tomb and the chaotic darkness representing death, sin, sorrow, and all the results of the Fall. This tumult of suffering is gathered up and formed *into* Christ’s own body in an attempt to visualize the reconciling nature of the Passion—in Jesus, all horror is borne in love and so finally turned to beauty in His own slain and risen self.
Around Christ and the Church are the two trunks of the Tree of Life as it appears both in the Garden at the beginning and the New Creation at the end.
The Sun, Moon, and Stars are gathered around as celebrants at the marriage of God and Humanity, depicting not only the joy of the reconciled creation but the faithfulness of YHWH now supremely manifest in the wedding of Christ and the Church.
The square / diamond shape framing the divine wedding represents all of creation, now become a Paradisal Garden and Nuptial Chamber for the everlasting joy of the Church in her Lord. And finally, around the edges, the wings of the Cherubim / Four Living Creatures indicate that *this union*—the one-flesh Body of Christ and His Bride—that this union is now the locus of the presence of God upon His throne; here is the True Temple and True Holy of Holies.