Jesus said, “Touch me and see because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.” And as he said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.
Luke 24:39-40
Jesus showed the disciples his hands and feet – his wounds. The risen Jesus is on the other side of death, but his wounds from this side of death are still with him.
We all have wounds – caused from broken relationships, rejection, injuries, setbacks, tragedies, abuse, crime. Some may still be bleeding. Some perhaps were self-inflicted – some big mistakes. We live with these wounds. They never go away.
They stay part of us even after death. They’re healed, transformed – but they’re still part of us. They’re what we lived through, were shaped by.
In the Lord’s hands, they become marks of honor. No longer the dark side of our lives, they shine.
The transformation already begins this side of death when, especially at Eucharist, we join our wounds to the Lord’s sufferings on the cross. Like a musician who uses dissonance to produce a beautiful song, the Lord gradually crafts our wounds to create a place in our heart that was never there before.
No one leaves this earth without wounds, scars. That's one good reason to have a cross in our home, or sometimes to wear a cross. It’s the Lord’s cross, but it’s also our own. And it’s a sign of what God does with our wounds.
 |