See His Wounds, See God

Second Sunday of Easter - Divine Mercy Sunday

The Paschal candle blessed and lit during the Easter Vigil liturgy represents Christ, the Light of the World, down to the smallest detail. The pure beeswax of the candle represents the sinless Christ who was formed in the womb of His Mother (the Queen bee was also believed to have been a virgin queen). The wick signifies His humanity, the flame, His Divine Nature. Etchings are made on it to remind us that He is the Alpha and the Omega, the Lord of time and history.

But then the priest does something incredible to the candle. He wounds it with five grains of incense. The grains of incense are inserted into the candle, nailed into the flesh of the candle, in the form of a cross, to recall the aromatic spices with which His Sacred Body was prepared for the tomb, but also to remind us of the five wounds in His hands, feet, and side. So, as we look upon this symbol of Christ, we will be forever reminded that our Lord bore these wounds for us on the cross, but continued to display these wounds after His resurrection.

Those wounds are an integral part of His identity. It is as if the Church is giving us a clue - You will recognise Him by His wounds. Christ would appear incomplete without those scars. A Jesus without wounds is a Jesus without a cross and a Jesus without a cross, would be a Jesus that did not rise on Easter Sunday.

The scars were the main way our Lord confirmed to His disciples that it was truly Him, in the same body, now risen and transformed. St John draws our attention today to His scars. St Thomas did not just insist on seeing Jesus with his own eyes, to see what the others claimed to have seen. That is not what he requested. He asked for something quite different, something quite specific and odd. He says, “I want to see the wounds of Jesus. I want to touch those wounds.”

It is only in the Gospel of St John, in this particular passage, that we come to realise that Jesus was affixed to the cross by nails and it is only in the Fourth Gospel, do we have the story of the piercing of His side with a lance. The other gospels have not one single word about piercing nails or thrusting spear or even physical and visible wounds on the body of the resurrected Lord.

If St John didn’t tell us about the scars, we likely would assume that a glorified, resurrected body wouldn’t have any. At first thought, scars seem like a surprising feature of a perfected new-world and a perfected humanity. Isn’t the resurrection by definition a glorification, a perfection, a total healing? Shouldn’t the resurrection remove every trace of old weakness, every hint of prior vulnerability?

Our world does not tolerate scars and defects and people are willing to spend thousands and even millions on surgery and cosmetics just to hide them. Would we not expect that the body of the Risen Lord be an upgrade — from a perishable body designed for this world to an imperishable body designed for the next. Having scars just doesn’t fit the picture.

To add further intrigue to the story, Our Lord offers Thomas precisely what he desires, without any rebuke. At that point, Thomas utters his confession, “My Lord and my God.” Pay special attention to this high point, perhaps the climax of the entire gospel. The wounds of Christ would be the very reason for this confession of faith. Thomas sees the wounds and he sees God.

We might assume the Father would have chosen to remove the scars from His Son’s eternal glorified flesh, but scars were God’s idea to begin with. Remember how God brought forth Eve from the wound in Adam’s side? Or how He chose Jacob as the father of His new people after having broken Jacob’s hip in a physical tussle. Some of our scars carry little meaning, but some have a lot to say. But in the case of our Lord Jesus Christ, they are not a defect nor scars of shame but His trophy of glory. What do His wounds tell us?

First, our Lord’s scars tell us that He knows our pain. He became fully human, “made like [us] in every respect” (Heb 2:17 ), that, as one of us, He could suffer with us, and for us, as He carried our human sins to die in our place. This is why the suffering and death of the Son of God is unique in the world’s religions because in it, we see the ultimate answer to suffering. God does not give us a ten-point explanation on suffering. God does not stand aloof, watching, as the world suffers. In the Lord Jesus Christ, God enters the world and experiences suffering with us and for us. His scars tell us of His love, and that of His Father’s. St Paul assures us, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8).

But it is also important to note that our Lord’s scars are not wet open sores but healed wounds. They point not only to the pain which He suffered but to the victory which He has won. Every person who has undergone a surgery leaves the hospital with scars. The scars are evidence that the doctors and surgeons have successfully addressed the issue- they have won the battle. The patient is now healed. Likewise, our Lord’s wounds forever tell us of our final victory in Him. “By His stripes (wounds) we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5).

When Thomas sees Jesus and believes, he sees the wounds. He looks at the wounds. He does not see the evidence of man’s depraved cruelty but rather, he sees beauty, the beauty of the self-sacrificial love of the One who willingly chose to die for us. He sees the face of God’s mercy.

We too need to see them to believe. We will worship Him forever with the beauty of His scars in view. They are not a defect to the eyes of the redeemed but a glory for saved sinners beyond compare. We must let it sink in and remember that Christ did this for us. The wounds that mar Christ are the wounds that mar us all, transferred from us to Him. In His death, every needless death is absorbed. Every sorrow is seen in His sorrow. Every tear of mourning and loss is understood by Him. Our wounded God has redeemed every wound. Our murdered God has redeemed death. Our broken God has redeemed every broken heart and body. Our bereft God has redeemed every mourning. And should anyone ask us, “How can we recognise your God?” Just reply, “by His wounds you will recognise Him.”