Mysteriously Important Bodies

There's something very important about having bodies that I don't fully comprehend, but a couple of items recently have given me reason to consider anew the importance of physical bodies in Mormon theology.

First, a quote from Joseph Smith.

So plain was the vision, that I actually saw men, before they had ascended from the tomb, as though they were getting up slowly. They took each other by the hand and said to each other, ‘My father, my son, my mother, my daughter, my brother, my sister.’ And when the voice calls for the dead to arise, suppose I am laid by the side of my father, what would be the first joy of my heart? To meet my father, my mother, my brother, my sister; and when they are by my side, I embrace them and they me.

The "first joy" is to "meet my father" and other relatives? We believe that the the spirit world has a similar social structure to this world. If that is the case, we will have just come from being with our righteous fathers and sons and mothers and daughters. Why then would the resurrection be a time of singular rejoicing? I can only imagine that the thrill of an embrace--a physical embrace--will be something we've been longing for since the separation of our bodies and spirits.

The second point of emphasis for bodies is the work we do in temples for the dead. Let's take baptism for the dead as our example. Baptism is a time to make a covenant. God has specified a particular ritual we must go through to enter into a covenant with Him. We must have an authorized priesthood holder immerse us in water.

I suppose that God could have easily chosen any other act to consummate this covenant. He might have insisted that we all speak a particular phrase, or that we wave our hands in the air, or that we lie on our backs very still for several minutes. For a number of good reasons, he chose the symbol-rich ordinance of baptism.

So now consider those people who didn't have an opportunity to be baptized in mortality. What is so special about the physical-body part of the ordinance that God requires it for all people, even if it must be done by proxy? For the life of me, I can't image why he couldn't have them perform some similar body-free ordinance in the spirit world. But they apparently need water baptism just as mortals do. I don't understand it, but it seems to be saying something very important about bodies.