Jesus’ Scars

by Norm Seli

 

I must have driven past it three or four times before I noticed.

The fifth time it caught my eye.

The sixth time, I stopped the car.

And read the sign.

In front of my kids’ former high school… a learning institution from which they all graduated… a Roman Catholic learning institution… the sign read:

“Jesus Christ: the light of the world. A light that no darkness can distinguish.”

I called the school.

“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… a refund for my kids high school education might be nice…”

That’s what happened… well, all except for the part about the refund.  I’m going to the provincial government for that… I hear that they’ve got lots of money.

It was a simple sign with one small mistake on a word.  It took them ‘til Thursday to correct the sign.  I wonder if anyone else noticed?

But then again, maybe a number of people noticed and agreed with the statement.  Jesus Christ – a light that’s a lot like the other lights…. and frankly, hard to see in the dark.”

Is that what Jesus is like for you?  A light to be sure, but there are lots of lights and they’re pretty much all the same.  Good advice on how to live a good life.   Siddhartha Gothama, the Buddha, the prophet Mohammed; Lao Tzu; Confutsu; Ghandi;

Or maybe you just to turn on the TV to  Oprah, Dr. Phil and Judge Judy…

For me there is something that distinguishes Jesus.  It was in the Gospel this morning. It’s his scars.

I can’t get over it. He appears, risen from the dead…. with scars. They were not erased. The miracle Easter did not erase the scars of Good Friday. Jesus still has his scars!

Why?

A lot of religions have their gods or exemplars rise above their scars… they have their leaders and holy incarnations triumph and shine perfectly and brightly from the heavens. 

If I were creating a religion – I certainly wouldn’t have an injured primary figure!  I would have a hero… good looking, strong, able, unassailable and perfect.

Jesus has wounds.

Jesus has scars.

Even after the triumph of the resurrection – he still has scars!

Why?

I’ve got a scar on my nose… across the bridge… if you can’t really see it, don’t worry you can tell that the nose has been broken a couple of times.  I went over the handle bars of my bike when I was younger and I hit the curb with the unimportant part of my face... my nose.  I broke it in a Karate Tournament… I broke in football practice (we were told to wear our helmets)

Most of you have noticed that I limp from time to time.  A right tib-fib they call it… snapped my leg while playing soccer at 16, now the legs aren’t quite the same length, so when I’m tired, I limp a little.

How about this one on my wrist?  When I was six we lived in a four plex, basically four apartments in one house.  Two up and two down.  We used to play a game where you ran down the stairs really fast and tried to get out the door before the other kids slammed the door shut.   The door had French windows, all those little glass panes.    They were faster with the door than I was with my feet….

Looking at my scars, you know some things about me.  Well, you know that I was reckless and stupid as a child… and you can probably guess what happened to my promising career in high fashion modeling…  My scars tell you who I am.

We all know those people, that as soon as we meet them, they want to show us their scars, don’t we? 

·        “Got this one fishing for lake trout…  that fish was so big, it pulled me right out of the boat and I got this trying to hold on…”

·        “I was in the hospital for almost 2 weeks, dear, and all I have to show for it is this patch of skin, that simply won’t tan”

·        “I got my white hairs from my kids…. Have I told you about them?”

And we do it, too.  We might wait until we know someone a little better… but eventually we show them our scars.  Scars tell people that we are human.  We’ve lived.  We’re not bystanders, we have been involved.  We’ve not just watched from the sidelines… we’ve been part.

Jesus’ scars tell us that God is involved.  God is not above this life; God has not been freed from the illusions of our world – God is part of our world.  Injured, scarred, just like us.

So?  What good is that?  A God that is scarred too….  I was kind of hoping for more of a Superman type. 

Were you?  Not me.

As many of you know I was pretty sick for two weeks before Easter.  Migraines.  Now, most of you will hear migraines and think, “Oh, he had headaches…. Imagine missing 2 weeks of work for a headache?”  You think of me as kind of a wimp…. 

But that’s because you don’t get migraines. A migraine isn’t a headache… sure, your head feels like it’s being run over by a truck and over and over…  but I also lose my vision…. It starts fragmenting… then it’s gone completely…then comes the horrible vomiting…  the desperate fear that I’m going to die –and then the tired despair of wanting to die. 

If you don’t get ‘em – you don’t really understand what I’m talking about.  But if you do get migraines, you understand how debilitating they can be.  And you understand what I’ve been through… and you might even understand me a little better..  With migraine sufferers there is an unspoken bond, we just nod at each other and understand.  Been there, done that… I understand.

A God who suffers and has scars… well, we have something in common.  That’s a God who knows what I’m going through and understands me…. 

When you are sick or hurt… there is often a feeling of being alone.  Completely alone.  Nobody can possibly understand how you feel… Nobody would want to…

I’m not just talking about illness….

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.

But more than that… worse that being ashamed…I was 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 experience 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

Alone. Being left alone by God is a curious thing. For so many, it seems that when things are at their worst – everything is going wrong…  it seems as if God has turned away from them. Left them alone.  Looked the other way.  Gone somewhere else.   God must have – because God is about perfection and purity… all things that are wonderful.  So when things aren’t wonderful, we are also faced with the worry that God has abandoned us…  turned away.

Jesus’ scars tell me that God is still present even when things are bad… maybe even more so, when things are bad.  I don’t know why God doesn’t just fix it and make it the way that I want it… even when I’m not asking much.    But even though I don’t understand the way that God does things, I can understand that God does stay with me in the hard times and can help me live through them.  I know, because Jesus had scars.

Well, you might say, sure he had scars but God raised him from the dead… but when we die, we die. 

But our faith says, Nay, not so.  Death isn’t the end for us either.  

And the truth is – it’s not really the death that frightens us so much.  It’s the pain.  The humiliation.  The betrayal.  The separation, even if temporary, from those we love.  Easter didn’t erase any of those things for Jesus… he experienced them all.  Just like we do.

He survived them all and found new life… just like we will.  

I know, because Jesus has scars.

But let’s not be so dramatic for a minute… I’ll back it down.  I kind of sucked the air out the room there… and maybe you’re not feeling wounded right now…. I’m glad. Nice day like this, it’s great not to be feeling hurt.   But there is still something for you in this story:

I had a call very recently from a woman who had a friend who was going through a terrible time –much the same as this woman had a little while ago.  The details aren’t important – what’s important is that the woman called me and asked what she could say; what she could do for her friend.  She wanted to do her best.

We all understand that… tragedy strikes someone close to us… and we want to help, but we just don’t know what to do, what to say.

I asked her if anyone had ever come up with words that made the pain go away.

She said no.

Fine, I said, then don’t make yourself crazy trying to take her pain away… you can’t and you know that.  So, just be with her, I said.  Just sit with her and hold her hand.. and let her know that you’re with her… she’s not alone.  I told her that she had something special to offer – precisely because she had been there herself, not in advice, just in being there and saying truthfully and sincerely, “I know,  I know”

This woman, who had been through her own hell… agreed that that was what she had needed in her worst times and she could do that…  Be with her friend.

Pretty smart for a minister, aren’t I?

I learned it from Jesus scars… He showed up at that house, with his friends all locked up and scared… and he didn’t arrive and tell them to stop being scardy cats; he didn’t arrive and fix the past; He didn’t tell them that everything would work out for the best; he simply arrived and showed them his scars.  It was enough… they knew that they were not alone.

Jesus Christ – the light of the world – a light that no darkness can extinguish…   but everyone 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.