Walking Wounded

April 7^th, 2013          “Walking Wounded”          Rev. Heather Jepsen

John 20:19-31

          Everyone knows the story of doubting Thomas.  Even those outside the faith sometimes use the phrase to refer to a person who just seems to doubt the stories or promises of others.  This morning, we return once again to this famous text, looking for a new meaning for our own lives of faith and doubt.

          The reading begins on the very day that the women discovered the empty tomb.  It is Easter evening, but instead of going out into the world to preach the resurrected Christ, the followers of Jesus have locked themselves away.  Having seen one of their own killed just a few days before, they are hiding from the Jews, afraid that their own lives are at risk.

          Suddenly the risen Christ appears to them, locked doors being no barrier to him.  The scene is striking as Christ mysteriously appears standing among them.  It would be like us looking around to realize all of a sudden that he was here and we didn’t even notice him come in.  He says “Peace be with you” and then he does a strange thing.  The text makes it clear that before he says anything else, he shows them his wounds.

          I think that as readers we almost skip over this part of the text to get to the next part where Jesus gives the disciples the gift of the Holy Spirit.  But to skip this part of the text is to make a huge mistake.  If we simply imagine the scene that night, we can see how important this would have been.

          Jesus says, “Peace be with you” and he shows them his hands and his side.  Imagine it, the first appearance to many of the disciples and the first thing Jesus does is not to say, “hey, I’m ok” or “hey, I got resurrected” but to say in essence, “look, here is where they put the nails in my hands.”  Then Jesus would have opened his robe or lifted his shirt, so that the disciples would see not only the wounds on his hands but the large gash in his side where the spear entered his body.  It is only after Jesus makes his suffering clear that he goes on to give the group the gift of the Holy Spirit.

          Enter our friend, doubting Thomas.  Thomas was not there that night and so when the disciples tell him what they saw and experienced he is reluctant to believe.  It is important to note that even though he doubts, Thomas is no less a part of the community of disciples.  In fact, despite his doubts about the resurrection, Thomas is still considered numbered among the twelve.  In our modern church community, where similarity of belief is often so important, we could learn a lesson from the earliest faith community which had room for the biggest questions and doubts.  The disciples do not try to convince Thomas to believe through peer pressure or coercion.  Rather, they seem to have the faith that Thomas will come to belief in his own time.  I think this is a great evangelical lesson for all of us.

          Thomas says that he won’t believe unless he himself sees the wounds of the Lord.  Again, we have this strange emphasis on the wounds of Christ, rather than on his healed body.  Some scholars have wondered if Thomas wasn’t the unnamed beloved disciple who appears so often in the gospel of John.  If so, perhaps Thomas himself was the only male apostle to witness Jesus’ crucifixion.  If that was the case, maybe he is unable to believe in a resurrected Christ who does not bear the wounds of the cross which would have been so vivid in his own memory. 

          A week passes in a stalemate, the disciples claiming to have seen the Lord and Thomas refusing to believe unless he sees Jesus’ wounds himself.  At the end of the week, the disciples are again gathered behind closed doors, but this time Thomas is among them.  Jesus appears once again among them and once again he says, “Peace be with you” and goes about the business of showing off his wounds, asking Thomas not just to look at his wounds but to actually touch and see that they are real.  He says to Thomas “Put your finger here and see my hands.  Reach out your hand and put it in my side.  Do not doubt but believe.” 

          The text doesn’t say exactly if Thomas really touched the Lord’s wounds or not, but I believe that he did.  I think Thomas really wanted to know that the very Jesus who was hanging on the cross a week ago was now in his presence, still bearing the open wounds of his suffering.  Thomas needs to know that the suffering of Christ was real, and not simply a show put on by a magical non-human being.  Though Christ has been resurrected, he has not lost the marks of his suffering.

          I think that there is a very powerful message in this passage for us.  Many preachers will stand in their pulpits and tell you that God will make everything OK, that God will take away all the hurt and pain in your life.  While I want to believe those promises, I think it is important to remember that just because we have new life in Christ it doesn’t mean that we aren’t still wounded people.  And just because we are believers, it does not mean that we will live without suffering now or in the future.  If Christ is to be our true model for faith, then we must recognize that he still carries the wounds of his suffering.  Even though he has a healed body, he still carries the fresh scars of his rejection and humiliation upon the cross.

          Author and pastor Frank Honeycutt wonders if this shouldn’t be more significant in our life as a church.  Our liturgical practice of sharing the peace of Christ with each other comes from this text.  What if we truly modeled our passing of the peace after Jesus?  “Peace be with you Jim, take a look at my cardiac bypass incision.”  “Peace be with you Jenny, have I told you about how I can’t pay for my medications this month?”  “Peace be with you Frank, I want to tell you that I am still struggling over the loss of my brother and that I never said I was sorry.”  “Peace be with you Isabel, you know my grandson is still mixed up with drugs don’t you?”

          The truth is that we are all wounded people.  So many times when people ask how we are, we responded with a “good” or a “fine”, lying straight to the face of those that we love.  As Christians we are sometimes embarrassed by the suffering in our own lives.  We wonder why, if we are good Christians and have faith; our lives are still a mess of suffering and sadness.  We often worry that if others were to find out about how we really live, all the things we worry about and struggle through, that they will think less of us as people or as Christians.

          The reality of our faith is that suffering is still a part of our lives.  The uniqueness of our faith is that we have a God who suffers alongside of us.  We have a God who was broken and wounded physically and emotionally upon the cross and who still carries those wounds in his healed body.  God promises us a certain amount of healing in our lives, and I think we all can agree that our lives are better with God than without.  But, even though we are a healed people, we also carry the scars of our past and current hurts in our bodies.  Perhaps if we approached our faith from an honest position about our suffering, we would find that we have a more honest and authentic faith.

          Like Jesus Christ, we are the walking wounded.  Wherever we go we take with us the scars of our past and the sufferings of our present.  If we are to be true to our faith, we must be honest with ourselves and others about the pain in our lives.  It makes us no less Christian to admit our own wounds.  Rather, it models us more after our Lord.  The first thing that the resurrected Jesus did among his disciples was to show them his wounds.  The first thing he did was to show them that he was in fact human, he was just like them, and even the miracle of the resurrection could not take away the scars of his rejection. 

          This Sunday after Easter, we can be confident in God’s promise of new life for each of us.  But we must also face the reality that we still carry the wounds of the past.  Like Jesus, it is our honesty about these wounds which will help us to reach out to others with the message of the gospel.  We are blessed to be the walking wounded.  Amen.