“Showing Our Scars”

John 20:19-31

April 16, 2023

“After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord….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!’” (John 20:20, 27-28; NRSVUE)

As I’ve sat with this text from the Gospel of John this week, I’ve been thinking a lot about scars–about how we get them…how we feel about them…if and when and with whom we talk about them…

I’ve been thinking about my own scars, for starters…

I have a few scars from injuries. Like this one on my hand [left hand, below thumb], from the time I tried to force open a can of tuna fish that the can opener had not totally opened… I also have three tiny scars on my right knee, from the arthroscopic surgery I had after partially tearing my Anterior Cruciate Ligament playing lacrosse in college. 

I also have a few scars from accidents. LIke this one [right hand, inner wrist], from a time when one of our cats apparently did not want to be picked up but had neglected to let me know that until I tried to pick him up…! And one up here [hairline] from the time when four-year-old, rambunctious, me was running around outside my home church, and somehow ran headlong into the base of a statue and cut my head open! 

I also have scars from my three pregnancies. Stretch marks across my belly whose silvery lines remind me that at one point in my life–well, at three points!–I had tiny, and then not-so-tiny, humans growing inside of me!! 

I suspect that some, if not all, of you also bear scars on your bodies…whether from injuries or accidents or other life events…whether they represent something you’re proud of or something you’re ashamed of…whether they’re easily visible to the world around you, or not. 

Regardless of how they came to be, regardless of what stories we tell about them, regardless of where they are on our bodies, our scars are part of our story. As we tell their stories, they tell something about us and what we’ve experienced in life. Whether they’re big or little, whether they seem significant or not, our scars are part of who we are.

And, of course,  even though so far, I’ve only talked about visible scars, there are also invisible scars. Scars that result from emotional rather than physical injury. Scars that can’t be seen by the naked eye, even when we’re fully unclothed. Scars that reside within us rather than on us. 

Scars caused, for example, by hurtful words spoken to us, or perhaps hurtful words spoken by us… 

Scars left after witnessing a traumatic event, or living through a traumatic experience… 

Scars resulting from having been repeatedly shamed, or misunderstood, or neglected, whether intentionally or not. 

And then there’s the scar from having grown up not fully knowing our belovedness, having been raised by adults who never fully knew their belovedness, who had been raised by others who hadn’t known their belovedness…and so on and so on and so on…leading all of humanity, I believe, to bear that particular scar…

All of us, all people everywhere, all humans, bear scars. Some are visible, many are not… Either way, they’re part of us. They’re part of our story. My scars are part of what makes me, me; and yours are part of what makes you, you. When I was younger, in fact, I knew a set of twins. Identical twin brothers. It was very hard to tell them apart! Except that one of them had a small scar on his left eyebrow. Before I could call either of them by name, I had to look for that scar. 

Whether they’re from injuries or accidents or other life events…whether they represent something we’re proud of or something we’re ashamed of…whether they’re visible to the naked eye or not, our scars are part of what makes us who we are.

So what do our scars have to do with Easter and Jesus?? 

Well, as we heard in today’s passage, when the resurrected Jesus appeared to his disciples, it was by his scars that they recognized him. It was through seeing his wounded hands and the place in his side that had been pierced by a soldier’s sword, that they believed he wasn’t a ghost. It was only after he’d shown them his scars that his disciples knew it was really him, that they accepted that he had really shown up among them, and it was only then, John tells us, that they rejoiced. (Jn. 20:20)

And as I think about that, as I think about how the resurrected Jesus was recognized and known by his disciples only after he showed them his scars, I wonder if it’s in showing our scars that we can be seen and known? Truly seen and deeply known…

I think that might be true… I think it’s when we’re able to be honest about our scars–yes, the visible ones but even more so, the invisible ones–that we can be truly known. First, just by ourselves. And then by one another. More deeply known. And that deep knowing of one another frees us to more deeply care for one another. 

When I’m able to acknowledge, for example, in a safe and appropriate context, that my heart has been broken by my daughter’s experiences with an eating disorder…those who witness that suddenly see me more fully. And know me more deeply. And, if there’s someone who then says, “Oh my gosh…my heart has also been broken by a loved one’s experience with an eating disorder…,” there’s more deep knowing, and there is also, immediately, deep caring…

I think it’s when we’re able to be honest about the things in our lives that have hurt us, injured us, damaged us…the things in our lives that have permanently marked us…the things in our lives that have left a scar–I think it’s when we’re able to be honest about those things–first just with ourselves, then with God, then possibly with others, and again only in a safe and appropriate context–that we can be more truly seen, and that we can see one another more deeply and clearly and kindly. 

As Lutheran pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber shared in a recent reflection* on this passage, “I never really feel a connection to someone until they have shared with me the lumpy, broken, petty, parts of themselves. I may be inspired by the virtue and accomplishments of others, but I only feel less alone when someone shares their failures with me, the parts of themselves that have been hurt.”  

In other words, when someone shares their scars.

And it’s not only about feeling less alone. It’s not even only about being seen, or being known. All of those things are very important. And wonderful to experience. And critical, I think, for flourishing. But there’s even more. Here’s a little more from Nadia: 

“Being an Easter people — a people of resurrection — is not to…have all the bad things that we have done or that have happened to us erased. Resurrection…is not reversal.

The things that happened to Jesus’ body — the state-sanctioned violence, the flogging, the crucifixion — remained even after he defeated death and rose from the grave. He still bore the marks of that pain, but the pain was not what defined him…”

What defined him–and now this is me talking again–what defined him was the way he manifested God. The way he revealed God in all of who he was and all of what he did, in his life, in his death, and in his life after death, in his resurrection. Jesus turned everything that everyone thought they knew, upside down. He hung out with outcasts and ate with sinners…revealing a God who valued them as much as anyone else. He put people’s needs above the Law’s demands, and Love above legalism…revealing a God whose heart longed for loving relationship rather than empty ritual and self-congratulatory righteousness… Jesus touched the unclean and used spit and dirt to heal the blind…revealing a God who would get God’s own hands dirty to heal and make whole God’s children…

A few more of Nadia’s words: 

“The thing that really cooked people’s noodles wasn’t the question, ‘Is Jesus like God?’ It was, ‘What if God is like Jesus? What if God is not who we thought? What if the most reliable way to know God is not through religion,…but [is] through a person? What if the most reliable way to know God is to look at how God chose to reveal God’s self in Jesus, even in [his] wounds?...  

Which brings us back to Jesus’s wounds. The marks on his hands and in his side. His scars. And the fact that that night, that first Easter evening, it was in seeing his scars that he was recognized by his disciples, that it was in Jesus showing them his scars, that he was known, even in his resurrected body. The resurrection didn’t make his scars go away; it didn’t make everything all new and shiny and perfect. Instead, it was by his scars that he was known. 

And it’s by his scars that God is known, too! It’s by Jesus’s scars that God is revealed not only as a God who sees our pain and the things that hurt us and leave their marks on us, but as a God who has experienced that pain in God’s very self. By his scars, Jesus reveals a God who bears scars, even as that God conquers death!

Our scars, like those in Jesus’s hands and side, will always be part of us. They will always be part of our story. But they are never the whole story. They are never the end of the story! 

The end of the story is not hurt, but healing. 

The end of the story is not despair, but hope. 

The end of the story is not shame, but love. 

The end of the story is not death, but everlasting life!

Thanks be to God!

Amen. 

(*from a sermon preached in The Beacon at Skyline Correctional Facility chapel in Canyon City Colorado)