Jesus’ Wounds
BLUE CHRISTMAS
John 20:24-29
“My Lord and my God!” Imagine Thomas’ immense delight in seeing the risen Savior. He has heard from his fellow disciples and friends that Jesus appeared to them days earlier, and Thomas struggled to believe. He wants to see for himself just as they did.
Sometimes Thomas is known for his doubt, but I think Thomas is actually a person deeply focused on the embodied and incarnate nature of Jesus. Thomas wants to have the face to face, hand-in-hand connection with Jesus. He wants to see the thing he deeply hopes is true—That Jesus is resurrected!
In particular, Thomas names a desire to see and touch the wounds of Jesus. He explains, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” He wants confirmation of Jesus’ resurrection and his identity through seeing the wounds that Jesus carries.
This story is always remarkable to me; something about Jesus’ wounds identifying him strikes me. It does not make complete sense that Jesus would even have these wounds after the resurrection. Imagine… Jesus can heal those around him and Jesus can be raised from the dead. Yet his resurrected body bears scars. Jesus would certainly be able to heal these wounds if he had desired to, but he did not. We can assume that those wounds are an important marker for Jesus and his disciples.
Jesus appears to the disciples, and to our dear Thomas, in his wounded form. Our incarnate and resurrected Lord retained his scars.
I want to place this post-resurrection, Easter season account of Thomas within Advent. Here we are just a few days from Christmas, right in the thick of the season where we await the coming of Jesus—baby Jesus and the second coming of Jesus. St. Thomas’ feast day is just before Christmas each year and is our focus tonight at this Blue Christmas service. Hearing of Thomas today of all days reminds us of the already and not yet nature of Christian belief. We already know that Jesus died and rose again, and yet right now we await the remembrance of his birth. He has already lived and died and risen AND has not yet come. That is the very nature of Christian belief. A remembering and a waiting.
Hearing of Thomas and his encounter with Jesus’ wounds during the Advent season reminds us of the challenges that come with Jesus being embodied and incarnate. When we already know how the story ends and begins again, we know the power of Jesus’ birth in an even deeper way. We know that his birth opens the possibility for grief, for wounds, for deep hurt, and even for death. While I delight in a Christmas pageant with glittery angels and adorable sheep, we know that the Christmas story is not one that is exclusively happy and cute.
The Christmas story engages the pain of birth, the challenge of travel and of not having a place to lay your head, and the knowledge that even a baby who is fully God is also fully human and will be hurt by this world.
The waiting of Advent and the Christmas season can be a marker of the way that God did not stray away from the struggles of humanity. We see this clearly as Thomas and Jesus reunite. God does not shy away from wounds and scars. God, in the person of Jesus, allows those scars to be a part of the story.
Tonight as we remember the longest night of the year and as we acknowledge that the holiday season can bring grief and can show our own woundedness, I take great comfort in a God who shows his wounds to a friend. Our Savior could have returned to us without blemish, flaw, or scar, and yet chose to return with the marks of the pain inflicted on him. In witnessing this encounter, we can be sure that our wounds are welcome with Christ.
Our scars, our grief, our worries, our loneliness, our disbelief, our sadness, our anger, and all of the markers of hurt and pain are welcome with Christ. In keeping his own wounds, we are reminded that we can come to Jesus in the midst of our pain and in the seasons that follow.
Coming here tonight probably means that you are encountering some of your wounds in this season. Perhaps the grief of an empty chair at Christmas dinner awaits you. Maybe there are relationships that you wished were easier and stronger. Maybe sickness, either our own or the illness of a person you love, is affecting your ability to celebrate. Perhaps this year, or the past few years, have worn on you and you are simply exhausted.
There are so many ways that the holiday season can remind us of our hurt. It can be a season when we feel the need to just be jolly and celebratory. I hope in hearing of Jesus’ wounds even in the glorious time after his resurrection, you can rest assured that our wounds and hurt are welcome. It is a good and holy thing to come together, just as Jesus and his disciples did, without needing to hind our wounds. Every bit of you is welcome with God, the joys and the hurts.
I mentioned a moment ago how being Christian is a pattern of remembering and waiting simultaneously.
Tonight, we remember the hurt that Jesus encountered in the world. We remember the ways we too are wounded. We remember that the messiness of humanity is acceptable to God and that our God is willing to inhabit this delicate existence.
And we wait. We await the coming of Christ at Christmas and the return of Christ as our world is fully perfected and healed.
As we wait and as we remember, as we celebrate, and as we grieve or hurt, God is with us. The wounded Christ is with us each step of the way.
My Lord and My God, thank you for showing us that it is okay to hurt and to bear wounds and scars in your presence.
Amen.
© 2022 The Rev. Adelyn Tyler-Williams
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church – Fayetteville, Arkansas