The Story of Our Scars

I remember mom rushing in the office to tell me Adalyn had hit her head. I race to meet her with Jim at the doctor’s office and there is a a deep gash smack the middle of her forehead. Long hours in one ER to no avail. Then another trip and more time in the ER before they put her under to give her stitches. We knew it was gonna leave a mark, but all Adalyn cared about was the story. Every person she saw, she wanted to tell her scar story. You would have thought she had conquered the world by running headlong into a fence post.

Every scar tells a story. Some hold the story of creation and bringing forth life. Others come with tall tales of youth when you felt invincible. A few mark mistakes and poor choices. A couple hold stories of survival. Still others, while not seen with the naked eye, carry lost dreams and longings. Visible and invisible, every scar tells a story.

But what about the scars of Christ? It is Easter night. The disciples are in the upper room. No trumpet sounds. No alleluia choruses. No Easter lilies. The women told them that the tomb is empty. That Jesus is risen, but they are scared to death. The door is locked. They are anxious and wondering when they will be arrested and killed next. Is Jesus just a ghost? Easter now feels more like Halloween.

And then suddenly Jesus appears among them and proclaims “peace be with you” not once but twice. He shows them his hands and his side. This wasn’t some wispy ghost of Christmas past. This is the resurrected Lord in-the-flesh. Just as the Father has sent me, so I send you.” He then breathes on them and says “receive the Holy Spirit.”

Wow! Jesus appears out of nowhere with his wounded and yet risen body, proclaims peace, breathes out the Holy Spirit, and then leaves.

And Thomas misses it. I don’t know if he ran out for a snack or was running late that day, but he’s like the last person to chime in on the group text after the conversation is already over. I’m that person. Something incredible happens, and you are the last to know. They are all buzzing about seeing Jesus. “Dude, he was right here. Like, he was alive! Scarred hands and everything. And then he breathed on us and everything is different now. You shoulda seen it.”

But Thomas didn’t see it. Maybe his friends are just playing a cruel prank. Maybe it all just seems too impossible, too much, too good to be true.

People don’t just come back. People don’t come back from the dead. People especially don’t come back from crucifixion. He says “If I’m going to believe it, then I need to see it first. I want concrete proof. I want to touch the wounds in his hands and put my hands in his side. Then I will believe.”

We often treat Thomas as if he were the only disciple to doubt Jesus. And so we ridicule him. We have religious artwork like Caravaggio’s The Incredulity of St. Thomas and we nickname him “Doubting Thomas.” But the truth is all the other disciples doubted too. The men didn’t believe the women. The women assumed the body had been stolen. Mary thought Jesus was a gardener. The men on the Emmaus road thought he was a stranger.

Sometimes hopelessness, grief, and fear can be our blinders and we miss out on resurrection right in front of us. We don’t think anything will get better or be different or we fear what is coming and that becomes the only narrative we know. At the end of the day, Thomas just wanted what all of his friends had received.

And so a week goes by. Let me say that again. Everyone but Thomas sees Jesus, and a week goes by. Ever had one of those weeks or months or years. You pray, and time goes by. You ask, and time goes by. It seems everyone else has received their answer, and a week goes by. You just want proof, and a week goes by.

A week goes by, and they are in the room again. Doors closed. Thomas is there. Jesus appears and once again greets them with “Peace be with you.” Are you sensing a pattern here?

The resurrected Lord keeps appearing to his disciples again and again. He keeps walking through their doors of fear to offer peace. The disciples couldn’t see ahead. They were afraid of what was coming down the pipe. And they were paralyzed in the room. That’s what fear does to us. It lies to us. It immobilizes us. It shuts us in behind locked doors. Oh friends, I know the voice and the story of fear. It can be so tempting. But let’s pay attention, because it isn’t the only voice in the room. If we listen, there is a voice saying “peace be with you.”

Peace not as the world gives, but as Christ gives. Peace over our enemies. Peace over our fears. Peace in our doubt. Peace in our paranoia. Peace in our own woundedness.

Speaking of wounds. It seems Jesus heard Thomas’s request from a week ago. He goes to Thomas and invites him to touch his wounds, to put his finger on his hand and to reach out his hand and put it on his side. He says “Do not doubt, but believe.” He doesn’t ridicule him, berate him, or shame him. He doesn’t flip a table and ask the disciples why they haven’t been out celebrating life instead of locked up like its still Good Friday. He meets Thomas in his doubt and shows him that he still has the wounds.

I love the painting I mentioned earlier, Caravaggio’s Incredulity of St. Thomas. In the painting, Thomas is bent over sticking his finger into Jesus’ wound in his side with his eyes wide open and eyebrows raised. He is peering into the wound almost as if the wound itself is some sort of portal or passageway.

Jan Richardson asks “As we move into this Easter season, how do we see the wounds of Christ in the wounds of the world? How might we be called to reach into those wounds—not to wallow in them, not to become overwhelmed by them, but to touch them and minister to them and help to turn them into doorways that draw us deeper into Christ?”

Every scar tells a story. In 2016 Sophie Mayanne began a project entitled Behind the Scars. She began photographing people’s scars and sharing their stories behind them. Photos of knee replacement scars, house fire burn victims, car accidents, cancer, and scoliosis. One photo after another, people share the photos and stories behind their scars.

Our resurrection Lord, Creator of all heaven and earth, has scars. The resurrected body bears wounds, not wounds of defeat, but wounds of victory over death. Our scars tell the story of our past, but the scars of Christ tell the story of our future. The wounds of Christ are a passage from death to life. When Thomas peered into the wounds of Christ, I wonder if he began to realize that the wounds of Christ somehow are deep enough and wide enough to encompass and heal all our wounds. Somehow all of our scar stories, big and small, are caught up and held within the story of nail-scarred hands and feet.

Thomas peers into the wound. He touches Jesus, and he declares “My Lord and My God.” Today we are all like Thomas. We didn’t see it with our eyes, but yet we have the choice to believe. We can beg for proof. We can disbelieve. We can sit in fear. Or maybe. We can have faith. Tish Harrison Warren says “the reason I continue watching and waiting, even as the world is shrouded in darkness, is because the things I long for are not rooted in wishful thinking or religious ritual but are as solid as atone rolled away.” Jesus says blessed are those who believe who have not seen. Blessed are those who haven’t seen the scars but still believe their story.