This sermon is dominated by one image - scars. Rather than the cumulative force of many images, here is the cumulative force of one - scars - skillfully worked. When done effectively, as it is here, the listeners do not anticipate what is coming and therefore dare not abandon listening.
The presence of scars means there have been wounds. More importantly, it means there has been healing. Read and see how the preacher does it for his parish and for readers/listeners.
The old saying, "You can’t take it with you" is not completely true! There is something that we take with us from this life into the next - that something is our SCARS.
That’s right! We take with us our scars. These past two Sundays our gospel lessons point to the fact that the risen Christ still carried on his body the scars of his life on earth. Last Sunday in Saint John’s Gospel we heard of Jesus’ meeting Thomas’ demand to see and to touch the Lord’s wounds. Once again today, we hear Jesus answering the questions that rose in his disciples’ hearts by showing them his scars. Jesus relieves their fears and troubles with these words, "See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have" (Luke 24:39).
It was in sharing his scars from the old life that Jesus opened up the new life and the new relationship with his disciples. Whatever else he brought with him from the grave, Jesus brought first of all his scars. The Resurrection joy and fellowship came in the shared encounter of wounds that were healed. In Jesus’ own willingness to show his scars to others there came about in their lives a resurrection as well.
What kind of scars will we take with us to the grave and beyond? Most of us will undoubtedly have a few PHYSICAL SCARS from injuries and surgeries. Our bodies will be visible witnesses to wounds that were healed and to diseases that were cared for by others.
In addition to physical scars, most of us will carry emotional scars with us to the grave and beyond. Like any disciple, we will show signs of anxiety and doubt, of fears and of failures that have taken their toll in this life. These emotional scars may leave their visible signs, as well. For within, our bodies will be psychosomatic testimonies to unresolved feelings, unvented hostilities, and unspoken truths from our life here on earth. The holes and ulcers marking us will betray emotional scars that were never healed because we failed to share our pain with others.
This leads us to the most destructive of scars, the social scars of relationships that were broken, of friendships that never became as close as we hoped they would be. Social scars betray our own sin. They show the selfishness and silliness that has separated us from others. Social scars can even form in the body of Christ, the church. In our own situation there are scars from friendships that were broken over petty issues. There are scars that keep some of us separated from others simply because they were "on the other side" of the controversy. And I’m sad to say that, for some, there are wounds that have yet to heal and scars that refuse to close because we have stayed away from the only source of treatment for social scars: the body of Christ who is raised from the dead.
We find in Jesus one who wants others to see and to touch his scars. He does this in a way that shows them the same possibility for healing. Indeed, Jesus comes as the Risen Christ to his disciples for the sole purpose of making those physical, emotional, and social scars the very sign of healing in their lives.
Jesus explains to them the purpose of his scars: They are God’s means of making broken people whole and God’s means of making divided people one. He opens the disciples’ minds to understand the scriptures, "That the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem" (Luke 24:46-47).
The suffering and death of Christ were God’s means of sharing the sin and brokenness of the world. God in Jesus Christ opened up his body to the ravages of sin and disease that inflicts us all. This fulfilled the scripture that proclaimed God HIMSELF AS ONE WHO IS WOUNDED AND SCARRED, SO THAT WE MAY BE HEALED. Such a picture was given by the prophet Isaish:
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole and with his stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5)
In a vivid way, Jesus’ suffering was God assuming the deadly prognosis of our sinful disease and becoming its victim. Jesus refused any immunity from sin’s inevitable path toward death.
Yet it was also to fulfill scripture that Jesus assumed God’s role as surgeon. The prophet Hosea proclaimed the God who used the "scalpel" to bring back health and wholeness to his people:
Come, let us return to the Lord; for he has torn, that he may heal us; he has stricken, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; in the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him. (Hosea 6:1-2)
God’s surgery for his people was surgery on himself! In Jesus’ death on the Cross, God showed himself as broken by sin. He offered no last-minute "heroics" to save the life of his Son. Death came with no attempt on God’s part to spare his own Son - not at the cutting board of the Cross, nor at the grasp of the grave.
God did nothing that day, nor the next day, to keep the reality of death from his Son. But on the third day, God showed his purpose for opening the wound by opening the grave. He showed his purpose for giving death a free reign on his Son, so that it would no longer have power over any of God’s children. On the third day Jesus rose from the dead, and death was defeated, once and for all.
Much like a patient cured of cancer, Jesus showed his scars with joy and thanksgiving for the God who gave him new life! In the resurrected body of Christ, there were scars that spoke of God’s cure for all wounds of this world. For those who saw these scars, there was the Easter joy of telling others that NEW LIFE IS FOR ALL! Jesus not only showed them the wounds that were now healed, but he also showed them the way to be healed themselves: repentance and forgiveness of sins. For there is no complete healing without bringing sin to the surface and receiving God’s therapy of forgiveness. It is in repentance that we begin to show to God the marks that sin has made on our bodies. It is in repentance that we risk exposing ourselves at our worst, so that God can do what he does best: forgive.
Not only is it in repentance that we are forgiven, but it is through it also that we learn to forgive. We not only are healed and made whole, but we are also helped by God to bring this new life to others. Jesus is saying in today’s gospel that there is a mutual relationship between healing and proclamation. The repentance and forgiveness we receive from God is the message we carry to others, to all!
As a church which is part of Christ’s own body, it is time that we stop talking about our illness and begin taking the evidence of healing to others. That means that we are to begin sharing our scars as signs of wounds that are healed, rather than as symptoms of a disease that persists! For the healing power of forgiveness is that it keeps us in remission. We need not fear that sin will come back to claim us once again as its victim. The resurrection of Christ has conquered sin for each of us!
During these past months, we have shared our scars in many ways with one another. I pray that this will continue among us. But at the same time, I pray that people outside our church will also see the one God who has made us whole once again. For the purpose of Christ’s resurrection, and the resurrection of this, his body, is that the new life can be proclaimed to all nations.
"All nations" is a very large area! But "all nations" begins here in our own community. Our neighbors and friends have the same needs as we do. They have lives that are broken in many ways. They have wounds that need tending. They have feelings that are unresolved and relationships which are uncertain. And, most importantly, they have us! They have us who have shown our scars to the Lord and received his forgiveness. They have us who have shared our scars with one another while being made whole as the body of the Risen Christ. And they now have us who can take our experiences of Christ’s resurrection in our lives and help to make it part of theirs too.
Our scars are evidence of healing in Christ’s name. There is a need for others to see them and for us to show them. That’s the message of the Resurrection: There is something you can take with you!
Notes from the Homiletician
This is a sermon I preached on April 25, 1982. I had recently received a call to be pastor at Christ, Lexington, and was to begin full-time responsibility the following month.
The congregation was still grieving over the resignation of the previous pastor. The Easter message of hope and new life seemed particularly appropriate to our situation as a church.
The focus of several sermons during this period was healing - both individual and corporate. This sermon was given for people who were witnesses to healing and who now could talk about it with one another.
- Jeffrey A. Hancock