Jesus of the Scars

Sermon 389 St. Martin’s 144 (Riverway) 4/27/25

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."

But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe."

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." Then he said 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." Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

John 20:19-31

Easter Oddities There are a lot of curious things in our Gospel lesson today. We have John’s version of the Pentecost story, where Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit onto his disciples. We have Thomas, who has every reason to question news of someone rising from the dead—and because of it, we’ve given him the infamous title of “Doubting Thomas.”

This passage is jam-packed with things to consider, especially since we are told all of this went down on the evening of Easter. Talk about an eventful 24 hours.

Yet, one of the most bizarre aspects of this story (and the one I want to focus on this morning) is the nature of Jesus’ resurrected body. Sure, we could talk about Thomas’ doubts—and doubts can be a fruitful part of the journey of faith—but this passage is a lot more than just a story about Thomas.

In the post-resurrection accounts, we get some interesting details of Jesus. He is thought to be the gardener until he says Mary’s name, when in an instant her eyes are open to who he truly is.

Similarly, on the road to Emmaus, Jesus’ identity is hidden until he breaks bread with his disciples, and they realize that it was him all along. He calls out to his disciples on the Sea of Galilee with some fishing advice, and it’s not until their nets are overflowing with their catch that, yet again, they know that Jesus has appeared to them.

And so, Jesus’ identity is different, sometimes hidden, while also recognizable. He will eat fish along with his disciples; they can grab hold of him, they could count his fingers and toes if they wanted to.

And yet, he can appear and disappear at will. He is physically present—all the Gospel accounts are adamant on that point. When Jesus is standing in a room, he is truly standing there.

Though simultaneously, he is not bound by his physical limitations as we are. As our gospel passage describes, he can appear in a room without walking through the door. His movements are not subject to the constraints of time and space as they were before his resurrection.

We learn that Jesus’ resurrected body is both a physical, material reality, and yet the rules have changed—he is free, not bound by the same laws that you and I are.

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The early witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection were taking all of this in and beginning to process its implications.

As we talked about last week, most Jews back then wouldn’t have batted an eye at the idea of bodily resurrection. Well, as long as you weren’t a part of a small faction called the Sadducees, who claimed there was no resurrection.

For many other Jewish groups, including the Pharisees, resurrection was the grand hope of God’s people at the end of the age. Much like Ezekiel’s vision of a valley of dry bones describes, God’s Spirit would bind bone upon bone, linking them together once again with tendons and covering it with muscle and skin, until that which was dead would be revivified once more by the power of God.

What was baffling was not that resurrection was possible from the Jewish understanding, but that it happened in the middle of human history rather than the crescendo of God’s final act of history. 

And so, what did the early Christians make of all this? This one man who was raised in the middle of history? 

Well, they first realized that he was no ordinary man, and they began to understand that Jesus’ resurrection—this new and unfettered life—was their destiny too.

Through his death and resurrection, they claimed that Jesus blazed a path for humanity to share this same extraordinary fate. The Apostle Paul quickly picked up this idea and likened Jesus to the first fruits of this new age; he was the forerunner in this era of resurrection—he had inaugurated something utterly original, and there was no turning back.

A new reality, or as Jesus said, “a new kingdom,” had finally arrived.

The Scars With all that said, the strangest part of today’s passage is not that Jesus can somehow appear out of thin air, but that Jesus’ renewed and transformed body still has the visible scars of his crucifixion. His new-world body shows signs of the old world.

The Incredulity of Saint Thomas (Caravaggio)

When we daydream of what we’ll look like in heaven or even what our resurrected bodies will look like, I doubt we add in the scars that we’ve accrued over the years. But each of our scars tells a story, doesn’t it?

They may be birthmarks, or scratches from accidents that have never fully healed, or incisions from surgeries, but they are all a part of us and our life’s story.

We may try to hide them or cover them up, but scars are permanent; they will never go away. What a strange thing, that the scars of torture and death would follow Jesus into this new thing he brought about. 

In so many ways, Jesus’ scars are a sermon unto themselves about what it means to be human. Over the years, many have picked up on this powerful symbol.

Not long after the end of the First World War, a poem was published by Edward Shillito entitled “Jesus of the Scars.” The world at the time was very aware of scars, either from the soldiers who returned home bearing the visible marks of war or the natural landscape itself that had been ravaged by trenches and tanks.

When hearing this passage, the poet—like so many others who survived the Great War—couldn’t help but focus on one verse, “He showed them his hands and his side.” 

The poem goes like this:

“If we have never sought, we seek Thee now;

Thine eyes burn through the dark, our only stars;

We must have sight of thorn-pricks on Thy brow,

We must have Thee, O Jesus of the Scars.

The heavens frighten us; they are too calm;

In all the universe we have no place.

Our wounds are hurting us; where is the balm?

Lord Jesus, by Thy Scars, we claim Thy grace.

If, when the doors are shut, Thou drawest near,

Only reveal those hands, that side of Thine;

We know to-day what wounds are, have no fear,

Show us Thy Scars, we know the countersign.

The other gods were strong; but Thou wast weak;

They rode, but Thou didst stumble to a throne;

But to our wounds only God’s wounds can speak,

And not a god has wounds, but Thou alone.”

Amazing, isn’t it? The marks of his greatest moment of humiliation and pain are there for eternity. 

Some may consider those scars as blemishes to his resurrected body, but it’s those blemishes that Jesus invites Thomas to touch for himself, so that he might find hope in Jesus as his Lord and God.

Implications for Us It’s an important lesson for us, too. To be human means to have scars, to be nicked up a bit as we go through life. Jesus is no different in that respect, but unlike our blemishes, only his are the signs of salvation.

Our scars are a part of our story—and if we take this passage seriously— our scars just might join us in the age to come. We cannot hide from them (whether they are physical, mental, or emotional, you name it).

In fact, to be redeemed and restored by God seems to indicate that we are not washed away, even the parts we’d love to hide. Our story doesn’t start over, rather, it continues in the new heaven and the new earth. 

There is continuity, which gives meaning to the scars we accrue along the way in this life. They shape us into who we become, and even the most painful parts of us can be redeemed.

The same holds true for our involvement in our community and the world at large. Jesus’ scars are a testimony that Christians should be engaged with the world as it currently is because we know its destiny.

The world will not be washed away, but has been (and will be) redeemed from within by the power of Jesus’ resurrection. We cannot be detached from society’s problems; quite the opposite, we should be very much involved because we know the reality that Jesus brought into the world for the world.  

For the past 2,000 years, the Christian witness has been most profound when it fearlessly goes towards the broken systems and places in our world.

It was Christians who saved baby girls from dying on the edges of the town because their pagan parents valued boys over them and left them to die. It was Christians who created hospitals, cared for the poor, and supported the widows in their community.

Whomever the world has not valued, Christians have time and again run to their aid and been a voice to the voiceless because Jesus’ scars linked him (and us) to the pain and sorrow of the world.

God has done something that has fundamentally changed EVERYTHING, and so, we can be bold in how we live because we know we have a force on our side that is more powerful, more good, and beautiful than anything this world can gather against.

God has won—even if this world continues to resist. The ultimate victory is already ours in Christ, and it’s our job to live like it.

"Do You Trust Me" by Yongsung Kim

All of this is communicated in the subtle fact that Jesus’ body bears the marks of his suffering. We shouldn’t forget what the Prophet Isaiah foretold:

“But he was wounded for our transgressions,

crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the punishment that made us whole,

and by his bruises we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5).

Though our scars don’t ultimately define us, Jesus’ scars do. By his bruises, we have been healed—once and for all. We can look at his scars for our hope in the troubling moments of our life, while also recognizing that our mission is to go towards the broken and scarred places in our world.

Nothing is outside of God’s redemptive power because we know…

But to our wounds only God’s wounds can speak,

Lord Jesus, by Thy Scars, we claim Thy grace.