Touch these wounds

Second Sunday of Easter Year A

Our story provides us with a paradoxical contrast - closed doors but open wounds. How we wish it was the other way around? The idea of closed doors suggests that it is a done deal, there is no longer any room for negotiation, that time has run out. In the synoptic gospels, we have the parable of the ten bridesmaids, five wise and the remaining foolish, with the latter being turned out of the party because of their folly and lack of preparation. When they returned from their shopping trip, they were confronted with the painful reality of closed doors - they were too late and judgment has already been delivered.

We can imagine a similar scenario in today’s passage. The disciples of the Lord could only live with regret - the regret of following a man who could have been the Messianic King, the regret of not following Him to the very end, the regret of turning their backs on Him, with one denying Him and the other betraying Him. The closed doors symbolised their predicament. They had closed the doors of their hearts to their master and now they deserved to have God closed His doors of mercy on them, or at least this is what they thought. Despite the doors of the Upper Room and their hearts were shut and locked, the Lord Jesus came in anyway. The stone which blocked the tomb could not keep Him in. Neither could these flimsy wooden doors keep Him out. That is the power of Divine Mercy.

Several things happened on this day. Our Lord breathed the Holy Spirit on to His disciples and offered them the gift of peace which the world cannot give. Our Lord offered them pardon and mercy for their betrayal, courage in place of their fear, peace to their troubled hearts, and the Holy Spirit, the advocate to be their “forever” companion. But there was one more thing He offered them on this day. He offered them the gift of His wounds, the one thing which would have shamed them to their core, because these were the most condemning evidence of their lack of commitment and cowardly betrayal.

Christ came to these disciples with His opened wounds. He could have concealed them under layers of clothing, He could have cauterised and healed them without leaving any trace of a scar. But He left them visible and opened. The Glorified Lord carried the marks of His passion. His resurrection did not obliterate these signs of His great act of self-sacrifice. This is because the wounds of His crucifixion are the means by which we are saved. In the words of the prophet Isaiah, “whereas he was being wounded for our rebellions, crushed because of our guilt; the punishment reconciling us fell on him, and we have been healed by his bruises” (Isaiah 53:5). We cannot know who Jesus is without seeing His wounds. We cannot understand Jesus without understanding the significance of His wounds. His identity is tied to His passion and death. His wounds are the marks by which humanity is reconciled to God. His wounds are a testimony to the mercy of God towards humanity, a mercy beyond our comprehension. You have to see it to believe it.

Those wounds on the Body of the Glorified and Risen Lord teach us several things. First, they show that this Jesus is not a ghost but a real flesh-and-blood Person. Second, they serve as powerful reminders of the great love of God for us, a love so great that in Christ God died, so that our sins might be forgiven. Third, those wounds illustrate the continuity between the earthly life and ministry of Jesus and His eternal high priesthood, by which He lives to make continual intercession for us before His Heavenly Father (cf. Heb 7:25).

It is not by accident that St Thomas comes to faith, not by simply seeing an apparition of Jesus, but only after being instructed to pay heed to those sacred wounds, which are not scars of defeat and ignominy but, as the medieval mystic Julian of Norwich puts it, noble “tokens of victory and love.” This is why medieval art will show Christ at the Last Judgment showing us once again those sacred wounds. What purpose do they serve? When we meet Christ face to face on Judgment Day, He will look just as He did during that first Easter season: We will behold Him in glory, but a glory that still teaches us the price of sin. Seeing His wounds on that day will bring us to the full awareness of what our sins have done and this will either move us to loving gratitude as expressed by all the saints in heaven or to utter shame and unrepentant guilt in the fires of hell. No one can stay neutral in the face of these wounds. We will either experience mercy and forgiveness or be condemned to despair by our shame and guilt.

But our Lord’s wounds are not confined to the visible parts of His body, His hands and feet and His side which would have necessitated the lifting of His tunic. The biggest wound is the wound to His heart. In his account of the crucifixion, St John alone among the evangelists tells us: “One of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water.” (Jn. 19:34) This was a pivotal moment of revelation for St John. The wound at His side was not a superficial flesh wound. The spear penetrated deep into the very core of our Lord - His heart.

What we can only imagine with our mind’s eye is now made visible in the iconic image of the Divine Mercy. The image opens a mystical door into the inner core of His being, allowing us a peek into what remains a mystery. It shows the pierced heart of the Lord from which the streams of red and white light flow, representing the blood and water which the evangelist saw. This is the grace of salvation flowing upon humanity. The piercing of the heart was the means by which the floodgates of mercy were opened upon a sinful, broken and suffering humanity. The piercing of our Lord’s heart gave us the two foundational sacraments which made the Church and makes us members of the Church - Baptism and the Eucharist.

Devotion to the holy image of the Divine Mercy as our Lord communicated to St Faustina is not just confined to His handsome and beautiful visage. It is also an invitation to gaze upon His wounds, both visible and hidden. Contemplating the wounds of Jesus can move cold and obstinate hearts. It can bring about conversion. It can open doors that are sealed shut by our obstinacy. It can heal wounds that have been opened by our sins and the sins of others.

As the Lord said to Thomas, He says to us, “Put your hands into the holes that the nails have made.” These holes are the wounds by which we are saved. These holes are the wounds by which we are healed. These holes are the means by which My Divine Mercy will be poured forth upon humanity. Don’t be afraid to touch these wounds and believe. Touch these wounds and be moved. Touch these wounds and hear our Lord’s accompanying words: “Peace be with you”, “your sins are forgiven” and “I am sending you.” Touch these wounds and like Thomas, bow in adoration while professing: “My Lord and my God... I trust in you!"