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April 3, 2005

John 20:19-31

Norm Seli, Protestant pastor in Canada, tells of a one time he drove past the local Roman Catholic high school - the place where his own children had been educated - and noticed something on the marquee in front of the building that he hadn't noticed before.

The sign said, "Jesus Christ: the light of the world. A light that no darkness can distinguish." Now, in case there are any of you who are not biblical scholars, the actual biblical quote from the first chapter of John is that he was a light that the darkness could not "extinguish," not "distinguish." And that's distinguishing difference!

Perhaps Seli is a closet English major or maybe even a fully unrepentant one like me, but whatever the reason, he just had to call the school to talk to them about their sign. Their conversation went like this:

"Excuse me, you probably don't want to remember me... but I need to point out that there's a problem with your sign." "Really, sir... what would that be?"

"Well, the message..." "It's Easter, sir, and we are a Roman Catholic High School."

"I know, but the message is wrong." "Sir, we are just celebrating Easter, we don't insist that everyone in the community agree..."

"I know that... it's just that what your sign says is that Jesus Christ is the light that can't be recognized." "Sir, it's from the Bible."

"Well, yes and no...what the Bible says is that Jesus Christ is a light that the darkness cannot Extinguish." "Would you like to speak with the Principal?"

"No that's fine... [but] a refund for my kids' high school education might be nice..."

Having gotten that unwanted editorial assistance out of his system, Seli began to think about the phrase they had on that sign. Is it true that Jesus has nothing that the world can distinguish? Is there no difference between Jesus and Buddha or Mohammed or Lao Tzu or Confucius or whomever? What exactly is it that sets Jesus apart from all the others? Seli answered his own question by stating that for him - and for me - the answer is in our gospel lesson, it's Jesus' scars.

Think about them for just a minute. God clearly has the power to bring Jesus back to life. And God clearly has the power to create an entire universe out of nothing. With that kind of power, surely he could have raised Jesus back to life in pristine condition - the holes in his hands and feet evaporated, the gash in his side forgotten.

But God didn't do that. It's as if God chose to honor the extremes to which Jesus' love drove him by keeping the wounds that love led him to receive. Contemporary Christian musician Michael Card once wrote a song about this idea called "Known By The Scars" and, if you will forgive its slightly male-oriented language, I'd like to share the words of its chorus with you:

The marks of death that God chose never to erase
The wounds of love's eternal war
When the kingdom comes with its perfected sons
He will be known by the scars

Why are those scars so important that they can serve as distinguishing marks for Jesus? Well, the simple answer is that scars tell you a little about the life of the person who received those scars.

I don't have many physical scars myself. I guess the most visible one, however, isn't what you might initially think of as being a scar. My right eyelid regularly droops a little. Since I don't often look at myself, I usually notice it in photographs or when I'm tired and happen to glance in the mirror.

That could have been due to a minor birth defect, but it isn't. Instead, I had an eye operation when I was two years old to correct a lazy eye. Somehow the drooping eyelid resulted from that operation. Perhaps the surgeon accidentally nicked a muscle. Perhaps something didn't fully heal properly.

But whatever it was, I will go through the rest of my life with a slightly drooping eyelid as a physical reminder of a childhood operation. It's not exactly the badge of courage that President Lyndon Johnson tried to make out of his appendectomy scar, but it is there as a reminder, nonetheless.

On a different level entirely, my most visible emotion scar comes from the death of my mother when I was 12.

I never really thought of myself as having had a lasting struggle with that loss, but the truth of the matter is that I tend to be very reserved with my emotions and, even though it took me many years to connect these two ideas in my own mind, the reality is that that reserve dates from the time of my mother's death. It was a mechanism I subconsciously adopted to cope with my grief.

Ever since that realization, I have been on a long road to teach myself to be more open. For example, I can remember coming back from a two-month stint as a summer exchange student in the Netherlands - two of the most desperately lonely months of my life - and reacting with shock when my sister hugged me as she picked me up at the airport. But her easy gesture made me realize that I was far more reserved than I had been even aware of. And that was the start of my attempt to overcome those reservations - a process I'm still working on.

I don't really think it's possible for anyone to go through life without racking up some sort of physical or emotional scars - even if those scars are hidden from ourselves for a while. Scars show our humanity. They show that we have been engaged with life - regardless of whether our engagements have been completely healthy or not.

In the same way, Jesus' scars remain to show us that he is no mythical god - like the imperious beings on Mount Olympus, who regularly seem to be entirely indifferent to the suffering of the humans they are said to have created.

Instead, Jesus chose to be actively involved with all aspects of human life, holding fast to the truth about God and about what makes for an enriching, abundant life, even when upholding that truth came at the cost of his own life. His scars prove that Jesus is one of us - someone injured and scarred on our behalf.

Therefore, he can understand the pains of human life on an intimate level. And, even though he was tempted and never give in, the very fact that he was tempted helps him understand our failings in a way that an aloof, omnipotent being never could.

In fact, Henri Nouwen wrote a book in 1979 called The Wounded Healer, which essentially put forth the idea that those who want to help others cope with their personal and emotional problems are best able to do so when they have dealt with similar issues.

They heal because of and through their own wounds. Isn't that really the main thing that distinguishes Jesus from any other religious figure? We have a God who has suffered for us and who has the scars to prove it. And he came back to life, not to exact revenge, but to offer his peace and forgiveness to any who would receive it. Jesus has demonstrated an ability to understand us and empathize for us even when we can't always - or when we choose not to - understand him.

How many times have you gone through some difficult time in your life, leading you to feel beaten and defeated, hurt and heartsick, and - worst of all - tragically and inevitably alone, no matter how many friends and family members may surround you? You are convinced - for a time any way - that no one can possibly understand how you feel. And so you turn away from the help you might otherwise receive.

In that regard, one author writes, "When I was young I was molested. More than once by the same person. I didn't understand... the experience made me feel alone. I was alone... in my confusion and in my shame I couldn't tell anyone... How could I? How could they possibly understand? How could they not look down on me as some kind of defective damaged weakling... not worthy of their concern or help because I was so weak!!

"Look what had happened to me. There was even a feeling of guilt... like somehow it must be my fault. I couldn't share that with anyone... certainly not anyone that I cared about or who cared about me... I was ashamed. They might stop loving me if they knew what had happened. I know that doesn't make sense in your head... but in your heart and in your gut, you know what I'm talking about. But more than that... worse that being ashamed...I was alone. That's what I remember most from that time... the horrible feeling of being utterly alone.

"Then I met someone who had been there.... and I wasn't alone any more.. He had been through what I had been through... and even if he didn't have anything to say to me; any advice or plan for recovery, just knowing that I was not alone was the beginning of healing. In his eyes, I wasn't a weakling; I wasn't responsible... I didn't have to be ashamed because he understood. Been there, done that. Somebody who hadn't been there - hadn't experienced my pain and my shame... they could never understand. But this person could... and that understanding made all the difference. I need a God with scars... that God understands me and doesn't leave me alone."

The story of Claude Eatherly also makes the point from a somewhat different direction. Eatherly was a young major in the U.S. Air Force during World War II. He was the pilot of the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945.

When he later heard that 100,000 people were incinerated from that bomb and that hundreds of thousands more were scarred for life by the deep burns, not to mention the thousands who were made ill by radiation poisoning, he suffered an unshakable sense of guilt.

Even as he was trying to deal with that guilt, his wife had two miscarriages. Then, when she finally gave birth, it was discovered that their baby girl had a rare blood disease, as did a second daughter. Medical investigation determined that Claude carried the same blood disorder.

It all proved to be too much for him. While his wife was out shopping one day, he attempted suicide. His wife returned home and got help to save his life, but he was still haunted by the tragedies in his life and the psychiatric treatments he received were only partially successful.

Somehow news of his condition reached Japan and certain Japanese leaders decided to do what they could to help. They remembered the pain of the war and wanted to find a way to put an end to it. So they wrote Eatherly a letter saying:

"We believe that you were acting under the orders of your superiors which you could not disobey, or under the impulses of war psychology into which men and women are driven in wartime in any country....May God bless you, hasten your recovery and help you so that you may decide to devote your life to the cause of peace."

On one hand, perhaps it is amazing that former enemies should care enough to reach out to help someone who had a leading roll in causing tremendous suffering in their country. But, on the other hand, perhaps there was no one who could more understand the level of suffering that Eatherly was enduring. And perhaps - for that very reason - their gracious help had added power.

Jesus' scars tell us that God can understand our feelings when a loved one dies or when a job is outsourced or when someone we love is enduring sickness or when depression warps our vision.

Jesus' scars tell us that God is with us in those hard times and will walk through them with us to a promised healing on the other side. After all, isn't that what a scar is - a wound that has been healed? We might prefer to avoid the painful experience altogether, but Christ's scars show that, just as he didn't magically avoid pain, neither can we. However, on the other side of those pains, healing is as inevitable as resurrection.

Norm Seli wrote, "Jesus Christ [is] the light of the world - a light that no darkness can extinguish... but every one of us can distinguish... we know it's Jesus because he has scars. Sometimes this passage comes to me as the most important passage in all of scripture, 'cause I need a God with scars. Thanks be to God." Amen.