Sacred Scars - EASTER 2026

SACRED SCARS

EASTER 2026

INTRODUCTION

Come on somebody, give Jesus some praise this morning! Who is thankful to be alive today. To be in the house of the Lord today. I want to welcome you to VC. Happy Resurrection Sunday! My name is John Michael Gibson. I am the lead Pastor, if it is your first time with us, we are so glad you are here. Let’s give it up for our first timers in the building today! Give them a warm VC welcome.

Today is a special day because as I said, it is no ordinary day, this is Resurrection Sunday. The day we celebrate our savior Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the grave. Today is the day we recognize Him as King of Kings over all authorities and even over death and the grave itself.

If you have a Bible, turn with me to the book of John. It will also be on the screen, and you can follow along in the Bible YouVersion App.

John 1:19-29 ESV

HOOK

My senior year of high school I was on the back of a bus on the way to our first pre-season tournament of the year for our baseball team. I was the starting 3rd basemen and we had a game that afternoon against a pretty tough opponent. For some reason I got this bright idea to cut this baseball open on the back of the bus to see what was on the inside. It was a unique baseball. If you have ever seen the inside of a baseball they are normally yarn and other materials and then a core that is like a bouncy ball. This baseball was solid and so it was different and I wanted to see if it had a core, aka I wanted the bouncy ball out of the middle. So I am cutting open this baseball with my new Letherman, which is one of those utility knives that has a knife and pliers etc., when all of the sudden we hit a bump the knife slips, and it slices my hand open. I just remember seeing my hand open up and light a filleted piece of meat. I grab my hand and my teammates start yelling to my coach that I cut my hand open and I was in shock. I was holding it as tight as I could. Luckily I lived in a small town and my neighbor's mom, a teammate of mine, came and met us on the side of the road and took me to the hospital. 17 stitches later I am out of the hospital. A few weeks later I am playing baseball again after almost being suspended for having a knife on the school bus which was considered a weapon, that's a hole other story, and now I have this beautiful scar on my hand.

Scars are interesting aren’t they.” They serve us as memories from events passed. Some happy, some sad, some good, some bad. No matter the case scars serve a purpose. They remind us of what has happened to us, where we have been, and in some cases, what God has saved us from. The truth is we all have scars. If we are honest most of us spend more time trying to hide our scars and act like things didn’t damage us. We try to pretend like life is good. Things are perfect. We cover ourselves up as if our scars are a sign of shame. Instead of being like Jesus and letting other see the scars, you do everything you can to cover them up. You do everything you can to hide them.Some are physical, some mental, some emotional. You have wounds that made you who you are. According to the text we just read it was the scars that proved Jesus to be who He said He was. But Jesus didn’t hide his scars, He used them as a tool to prove to others who He is. His scars were significant, they were sacred, and I believe they still are today. 

MESSAGE TITLE: SACRED SCARS

BACKSTORY

Let’s look back at the story and see the significance of the scars.

Just a few days earlier Jesus was brutally beaten, and sentence to die a criminals death on a cross. Many of his disciples and followers were their to witness His death. The sabbath day was approaching so they took Jesus’ body down, placed it in a borrowed tomb until after the sabbath when they could finish preparing His body and move His body to the family tomb most likely located in Nazareth. 

WOMEN GO TO THE TOMB

The Bible tells us that Mary Magdalene and several other woman wanted to get a head start on preparing Jesus body so they get up early one morning and go to the tomb. Upon arrival they realize the tomb is open so we see Mary Magdalene runs back to the disciples to tell them that the body of Jesus had been gone. 

PETER AND JOHN RUN TO THE TOMB

Peter and John run to the tomb. Now John the Apostle is the writer of this story and he often refers to himself as “the one whom Jesus loved” and he tells us that He ran back to the tomb and got their first but he didn’t go in. This makes sense because John new that maybe the women got something wrong or they didn’t see what they saw so John stops at the door of the tomb. He knows if he goes in he will be considered unclean. Then all the sudden Peter arrives but he doesn’t care and he walks inside the tomb. When he does, he noticed something. The linens Jesus was wrapped up in were neatly folded and Head stroud was folded separately.

This tells us that Jesus body wasn’t taken in a hurry as implied if it were stolen.

This would have also been a sign to the disciples that Jesus was coming back. In this day it was widely known that when a king sat down to eat he would fold his face napkin and lay it to the side when he would walk away to let his servants know he wasn’t finished but he was coming back.

This moment was very significant and all the sudden they saw and believed but they still didn’t fully understand.

They believed Jesus had resurrected, but they didn’t know why. This is most of us today. We believe Jesus resurrected but we don’t understand why or what it means for us. We don’t understand what the scars mean?

MARY SEES JESUS

Then Mary hangs back and see’s two angels and they ask why she is weeping? She is like if you took the body, please just tell me where and I will take it. About that time she turns around and Jesus is standing there in his glorified body but she doesn’t recognize Him. She thinks He is the gardener. This is interesting because you would think she would know it’s Jesus. But it isn’t until He speaks her name that she realizes who it is. This is revealing because it tells us a few things.

Whatever you expect, is what you will see.

Mary didn’t expect Jesus to be alive. She expected Him to be dead so it didn’t register with her that this was Jesus.

It is like running into someone in a place you don’t expect to see them and so you don’t recognize them at first because it is like they are out of place. Imagine being in another country and seeing an old friend. You may not recognize them at first because you are seeing them in a place you least expect it.

This is how God works sometimes. Sometimes we shows up in places we least expect it so we don’t recognize Him. We need to keep our eyes open, always ready to expect to see God move. The more we expect to see God the more we will see Him.

Also, it shows us that you can hear truth, be around truth, and even repeat truth (Jesus isn’t in the tomb), and still need a personal encounter with Jesus.

THE DISCIPLES

The same is true for the disciples. They needed a personal encounter with Jesus and so on the same day he rose from the dead he visited them in the room of a house behind locked doors and showed them his scars. Thomas wasn’t there. Then when the disciples try to tell Thomas about their experience, notice that Thomas was like, I will not believe unless I see it. The others had seen. But for Thomas, he needed his own personal encounter with Jesus. What does Jesus say? Blessed are those who have not seen, yet believe. 

This is how too many of us are today. Unless I see Him, I won’t believe it. It doesn’t matter what everyone else says. You need a personal encounter with Jesus but you have to be open to it. God doesn’t always show up the way you expect him. That is why so many people miss him just like Mary.

He says they are blessed. That means they are happy. Those that believe in the scars that haven’t seen them yet are blessed. They are joyful. Happy. Prosperous. That word blessed means all of those things in the Greek. Why does Jesus say they are blessed? Why did Jess say they were happy? Because the scars pointed to several truths that bring us hope today.

Death is not final

Now we also see that Death is not final. This is the most significant piece of the whole resurrection story, it is that death is not final. There is something more after this life. Jesus shows His scars proving He was the same one that died on the cross but death didn’t have the final say. Now He stands alive with His disciples alive. Because Jesus is alive today, we can live with eternity in mind, not focused on the things of this world that are soon passing away but focused on the wonders of God and how no matter how bad this life seems to get, God has the final say and eternity is where we are headed.

The problem is most of us don’t live like it. We are so focused on this life that we have forgotten that this is just a temporary place to which we are passing through and after this life their is eternity.

We put so much emphasis on this world. Our joys are focused on this world. Our hopes are focused on this world. Our dreams are focused on this life. What if you stopped focusing on this life and began to focus on the next. I bet you would have a lot less anxiety. I bet you would be a lot less depressed.

Knowing that this isn’t it. This isn’t all their is. This life is so corrupt and nasty and evil and the Good News is that Jesus came to restore hope into a lost a dying world that we can live again in this life knowing there is a better life after this.

The question is not if you will enter into eternity, it is which eternity are you are you entering into? One with God or one without? The reality is if you are a believer in Christ, His scars give us hope to know that this place is not our home.

God desires Redemption over Replacement

Jesus showing up in a physical body that is still recognizable tells us several things but the main things is that God is a redemptive God, not a replacement God. God is not seeking to replace you in eternity with a different you. No, God didn’t make any mistakes when He created you. He created you in His imagine, on purpose, for a purpose. 

This should give you hope in your existence that you are not a mistake. Think about it. We are going to have physical bodies at the resurrection just like Jesus that will be recognizable. Yet, Jesus kept his scars to prove who He was. Our scars will be completely healed, yet people will still see us and know us. That means our features will be so distinct yet uncorruptible. The things you are lacking now, you will have. The knowledge you are missing, you will know. The people you have lost along the way, you will see.

Even some of you have lost children, or babies in the womb, they too will get gloried bodies and you will see them at maturity in heaven.

The point is, Jesus scars show us that God is not going ot discard you for a better you. You are important to God. Your body is important to God. What happens to you is important to God. You are not merely enduring a temporary existence before everything gets discarded. God doesn’t discard, He redeems.

Jesus resurrection in His physical body lets us know that God cares about the physical world as much as the spiritual. We have to be careful not to throw out all the physical world as bad. Including the environment. Even the Earth will be made new. This should give us hope that God will redeem us.

God Keeps His Promises 

Jesus scars prove that God is a promise keeper. Had Jesus remained in the tomb, His scars would have served nothing more than as symbols of lies told about a future resurrection. But because he rose from the dead, His scars took on a whole new meaning. They became a symbol of the extent that God will go to keep His promises. 

We need to start resting in God’s promises again. Right now our world is in chaos. There is death happening all around us. And if we are looking for the bad we will only see the bad. But if we begin to ask God to remind us of His promises, then we will see how God will ultimately use all this bad to bring about an even greater good.

Remember you are a child of His, He will never leave you or forsake you. Things may be going bad or looking like they aren’t going to turn out the way you thought, just like the disciples, but we can rest in the truth that God is a promise keeper and He is not done with us. No matter how bad it looks. He is still working. His scars are still symbols of the promise.

If Jesus kept His promise to defeat death, He will keep His promise that He will return. The disciples didn’t understand the death, so they didn’t live in a way that prepared them for it, so when it came they weren’t ready. Are you living in a way that is ready for Jesus return?

Jesus is coming back. We have as much evidence for the resurrection by all standards as we do for Alexander The Great. If we can believe Jesus raised from the dead, it should directly affect how we live now. We should live in a way that says, we are expecting God to return.

We should be hopeful, joyful, loving, caring, repentant, reverent. We should be in church every week. We shouldn’t be making excuses as if we have forever. We don’t know. Jesus is a lot closer to coming back today than He ever has been.

The truth is Jesus is coming back. Are you ready for him? That is the question you have to ask yourself.

Jesus' scars prove that we can trust in His promises. He says he was gonna die, now He says He will return. Do you believe the scars?

CONCLUSION

Here is the thing about scars though, scars only appear after healing has taken place. Some of you don’t have scars you have open wombs and you aren’t ready to show them because the wombs are still open and you haven’t recieved the healing you need yet. If you aren’t careful you will show people your cuts and not your scars and you risk getting them bloody as well. 

So what do you do? You come to Jesus and let Him heal you. See when you let Jesus heal you, scars are not something we blame God for, they are something we look back on an thank God for, because without His healing their would still be an open womb.

If you have scars you should show them. Not so that you can get the glory but so that God can get the glory. Your scars are sacred and God wants to use them to point people back to Him.

Maybe you have open wombs today, will you come to Jesus to let Him heal you. Let His love be what scars you next. The bible says if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Christ from the dead, then you will be saved. What was the belief, in Christ being resurrected from the dead. That was Thomas’s big hang up, He needed to see it for himself. But Jesus says it is better for those that believe who have not seen. He is talking about you and me.

Do you want to believe today. You can. Just call on Jesus and ask Him to save you. Tell Him you believe in Him and ask the Holy Spirit to come revive you today.

LET’S PRAY