John 20:13-23
Second Sunday of Easter
When it was evening, on that day. You know the day. It was in the dark of the morning that Mary Magdalene discovered the empty tomb. Jesus stood beside her, unrecognizable, until he called her name. That evening, the disciples gathered together in a house. They shut the door, and slid the deadbolt into place until they heard it click, and then locked the doorknob with a key. Just in case, they slid a dresser in front of the door. Then they drew the blinds and turned off the TV and the lights. They spoke only in whispers, just in case,–just in case the authorities who nailed Jesus to the cross and hung him up in the heat of the day to drown in his own breath were after them, too. They holed themselves up because they were afraid. Fear is costly, and it seems their fear overwhelmed their grief.
Deadbolts could not stop Jesus. That his closest followers, those he loved had abandoned him at the cross, did not deter him. He stood in front of the disciples and his first words were, Peace be with you. In those words were absolution. The Risen Christ’s first words were his gift of grace. His didn’t ask where they had been through all of his suffering and death. He didn’t say, “You failed me.” He didn’t even say to Peter, “I told you so!” He didn’t call in a different crisis response team. He gave them his peace, his forgiveness, and his blessing. That is the first thing that Jesus did when he met his community of disciples.
Thomas was not there with the others when Jesus came the first time. Doubting Thomas. We all know him. We know this story. Or at least we think we do. When you read the story carefully, you will find that Thomas doesn’t ask for anything that the other disciples had not already gotten. Thomas was one who wants to make sure he has all the facts, and he needs to know that he understands. The last time Thomas spoke was in response to Jesus telling him that he was going to prepare a place for them, and that they know the way. It was Thomas who spoke up, saying, “Uh, Lord, we don’t know where you are going. And if we don’t know where you are going, how are we to know the way?” Thomas just wants to make certain that he understands. We know that he gets it when his is the one who first confesses Jesus to be, “My Lord and My God.” When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, it was Thomas who was willing to take the risk of death at the hands of the religious leaders along with him. So when Thomas heard of Jesus’ presence with the other disciples, Thomas wanted to, Thomas needed to have the resurrection experience. He needed to touch the scars on Jesus’ hands and his side, and Jesus wanted Thomas to do whatever it took to believe.
But it isn’t Thomas so much who captures my attention in the gospel for this morning. It’s those scars, Jesus’ scars. When God raised Jesus from the dead, why didn’t God fix him up? Why did God leave the scars when Jesus was raised from the dead? We are reminded that the Word had become flesh.
We might make the assumption that God didn’t do that so that the disciples would know for certain that it was Jesus, dead and risen. But Mary knew it was Jesus when he spoke her name. Jesus’ followers on the road to Emmaus knew it was him in the breaking of the bread. There is something in the scars – something important. “Touch the mark of the nails in my hands, and my feet. Touch where the spear pierced my side” Christ says. “Touch my wounds, and peace be with you.”
You know, we don’t have pictures of our hands and feet to identify us on our driver’s licenses, but yet, they say a lot about who we are. Before my grandmother died, I went to see her in the hospital. There were two older women in the beds. Neither one looked like my grandmother. Neither one was wearing the glasses that had made my grandmother’s eyes look so big, and their faces were gaunt. They were both skinny. So I approached the one that most resembled her. When I got to the bed, I saw her hands. She had hands much like my father’s. The pores on her skin were large and noticeable. Her right hand bore the scars of working with them for so many years. Her index finger was badly bent a little toward her pinky fingers.
Look at your hands. They are unique. My own hands are freckled from too much sun, and though faded, you can see the burn marks on my left hand from my days of putting food in the deep fat fryer at Burger King. Scars will never completely disappear.
“Touch my hands,” Jesus said. His hands that had pressed mud into someone’s blind eyes so that they could see. His hands that took the dead little girl’s as she got up. Jesus’ hands that held those of a leper. His hands that blessed and broke the bread so that it was enough to feed the throngs of people who had come to hear him.
“Touch my feet,” Jesus said. His feet that had walked hundreds of miles, kicking up dust as they went. Jesus’ feet that had sunk into the desert sand for forty days of temptation by the devil. His feet that had become wet with the tears of a woman, who then dried them with her hair. His feet that that had walked into the graveyard where the Gerasene demoniac lived, and took him up the mountain to pray.
“Look at my hands and my feet,” Jesus tells his disciples. “Touch my wounds.” They would know Christ through his scars. Christ, living but not all fixed up. Christ, not bound by death, yet scarred for eternity. The symbol for Christ in sign language is to put your finger of each hand into the palm of the other. Jesus, the one with wounded hands. The marks of the nails screamed that Jesus had gone through pain and suffering, not around it. They told the truth about who he was. They said where he had been, and whom he had touched. Love that saves is vulnerable and costly.
It is Christ’s bearing his wounds that says to us that each of us, that Christ is with us in both our woundedness and our healing. We all have wounds, those that others can see, and those that are hidden. It is Christ’s wounds still visible that says our hurts become part of who we are, and that is how God would have it be. Christ’s scars give us hope that our wounds can be transformed into scars, too, and that they will become a gift. It is in the sharing of our wounds that enable us to be healed, and it is in the sharing of our wounds that we can help to heal others. Our hands, because of our wounds, bear unceasing witness to the love of God in Jesus.
When we come to the table for the Lord’s Supper, we open our hands to receive Christ’s wounded body and poured out blood. Researchers have found that our physical bodies carry with them past traumas. We will bring to the altar our own wounds, our physical, emotional, and spiritual ones. We will be fed with bread, and wine, –by the life, and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In doing so, our wounds won’t disappear, but through God’s forgiveness and love in the Risen Christ, they become blessed.
~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin