A Devotion for Easter 2: In the Wounds
Blessings to you, people of the Resurrection! We have made it through the season of Lent, traversed the darkness of Christ’s suffering and death, and witnessed the power of the resurrection on Easter morning. Christ is Risen indeed! Alleluia!
This week, our lectionary Scripture zeroes in on one of my favorite characters in the Bible, Thomas – more (or less) affectionately known as Doubting Thomas. Though Jesus enters the room where the disciples have gathering through a locked door, Thomas’ suspicion gets the best of him.
He asks to see the wound in Jesus’ side. To which Jesus replies: "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe." (John 20:27).
I always thought that Thomas got kind of a raw deal. He is forever plagued with the descriptor of “doubting” before his name, which seems unfair. Plenty of the other disciples did foolish things and asked ridiculous questions. But not of the rest of them get such descriptive names. Really, it’s Peter who earns a nickname - “denying Peter” or “sank-in-the-water Peter” have nice rings to them.
Plus, maybe Thomas was just a tactile learner. Maybe there was something physical, and even holy, about placing his hand in the wound of Jesus. Something that he couldn’t have learned or experienced by just seeing or hearing about it. He had to enter the mysterious wound, the space where Christ’s body and spirit dwelt, he had to encounter the wound to ultimately be changed.
What happens when we encounter the wound? Either the wounds of Christ or the wounds of the world around us? Maybe, like Thomas, it is not enough to just hear about them. Maybe, just as Thomas, we need to become tactile learners, to place our hands on places of pain and hurt, and be changed.
There is a poem that I stumbled upon several years ago that speaks to the wounds of the world, wounds that beat and throb, raw with pain, aching for attention.
What They Did Yesterday Afternoon
By Warsan Shire
later that night
I held an atlas in my lap
Ran my fingers across the whole world
And whispered
Where does it hurt?
It answered
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere.
Jesus’ resurrection doesn’t mean that the pain of the resurrection did not happen. His resurrected body on earth still bears the wounds of violence. Rather, in his resurrection, Christ wears his wounds, confronts us with our own, and beckons us to move through them into new life.
Christ does not call us to seek out wounding, knowing that our earthly lives will bring enough on their own, but rather to allow our wounds to be a catalyst for healing, in Christ and in his body. The resurrected Christ bears on him the scars of the crucified Christ, teaching us to allow our wounds to serve as doorways through pain and into places of healing and of life. In Christ’s own resurrection, wounds themselves are transformed, becoming places where restoration can occur, rather than the final word of death.
As Thomas leans toward Christ, as he places his hand within the wound that Christ still bears, he is not merely searching for tangible proof of the resurrection. Instead he is entering into the very mystery of Christ, passing into a new world that most others do not have the courage to enter.
As we live into this Easter season, how might we see the wounds of Christ in the wounds of the world?
How might we consider the wounds of the people we serve and be called into them —not to dwell or remain or be overcome by them, but to touch them and minister to them? In doing so, might we be agents of resurrection, as we and those we serve are drawn closer to Christ?
In this season of resurrection, may you see the risen Christ all around you.
May you be blessed in your seeing, and lean yourself into the new world offered to us all.
Alleluia!
Chaplain Amy
I always thought that Thomas got kind of a raw deal. He is forever plagued with the descriptor of “doubting” before his name, which seems unfair. Plenty of the other disciples did foolish things and asked ridiculous questions. But not of the rest of them get such descriptive names. Really, it’s Peter who earns a nickname - “denying Peter” or “sank-in-the-water Peter” have nice rings to them.
Plus, maybe Thomas was just a tactile learner. Maybe there was something physical, and even holy, about placing his hand in the wound of Jesus. Something that he couldn’t have learned or experienced by just seeing or hearing about it. He had to enter the mysterious wound, the space where Christ’s body and spirit dwelt, he had to encounter the wound to ultimately be changed.
What happens when we encounter the wound? Either the wounds of Christ or the wounds of the world around us? Maybe, like Thomas, it is not enough to just hear about them. Maybe, just as Thomas, we need to become tactile learners, to place our hands on places of pain and hurt, and be changed.
There is a poem that I stumbled upon several years ago that speaks to the wounds of the world, wounds that beat and throb, raw with pain, aching for attention.
What They Did Yesterday Afternoon
By Warsan Shire
later that night
I held an atlas in my lap
Ran my fingers across the whole world
And whispered
Where does it hurt?
It answered
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere.
Jesus’ resurrection doesn’t mean that the pain of the resurrection did not happen. His resurrected body on earth still bears the wounds of violence. Rather, in his resurrection, Christ wears his wounds, confronts us with our own, and beckons us to move through them into new life.
Christ does not call us to seek out wounding, knowing that our earthly lives will bring enough on their own, but rather to allow our wounds to be a catalyst for healing, in Christ and in his body. The resurrected Christ bears on him the scars of the crucified Christ, teaching us to allow our wounds to serve as doorways through pain and into places of healing and of life. In Christ’s own resurrection, wounds themselves are transformed, becoming places where restoration can occur, rather than the final word of death.
As Thomas leans toward Christ, as he places his hand within the wound that Christ still bears, he is not merely searching for tangible proof of the resurrection. Instead he is entering into the very mystery of Christ, passing into a new world that most others do not have the courage to enter.
As we live into this Easter season, how might we see the wounds of Christ in the wounds of the world?
How might we consider the wounds of the people we serve and be called into them —not to dwell or remain or be overcome by them, but to touch them and minister to them? In doing so, might we be agents of resurrection, as we and those we serve are drawn closer to Christ?
In this season of resurrection, may you see the risen Christ all around you.
May you be blessed in your seeing, and lean yourself into the new world offered to us all.
Alleluia!
Chaplain Amy
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