Third Sunday of Easter

"Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones
as you can see I have."  Jesus,  Luke 24

Resurrection and Woundedness


It was important in the early Church that the account of Jesus' resurrection not become a "ghost story".  Some followers of Christ could not reconcile the divinity of Christ with his humanity, and came to the conclusion that Jesus, being divine, could not have truly suffered on the cross; a wounded God is much more difficult to worship.  Luke writes in the tradition of Christians who share the conviction, handed down by the Apostles, that Christ's humanity and suffering did not detract from his divinity.

When Jesus invites his Apostles to touch his wounds, and then to give him some cooked fish to eat, his intent was clear: "It is I myself".  During Good Friday, we venerated the Cross and meditated on the wounds of Christ as those wounds were the sins of humanity being put upon Christ.  Today we see Jesus, the resurrected Christ, but we also see his wounds.  Jesus was resurrected with his wounds.

Being resurrected doesn't mean we jettison our wounds, or, as Hamlet put it "shuffle off our mortal coil"; the resurrection has transformed our wounds, not removed them.  We carry our wounds through our baptism into our new life in Christ, and we often take on new wounds.  What is markedly different, though, is as Christians we live with our wounds visible, proof our our resurrection.  We can share the painful wounds we've received because we live in a new body, the body of Christ.  Love has conquered death, our wounds are no longer harbingers of death, but proof we have not died, but that we live.

There is that wonderful anecdote of a man trapped in a deep well and the encounter with people who pass the well that cannot help him.  Eventually, a man jumps into the well as his gesture of rescue only to be met with the contempt of the man trapped in the well. "Why did you jump down here to save me?  Now we are both trapped!"  His rescuer smiled: "I've been down here before.  I can show you the way out."

In a sense, our wounds when not hidden, become the agent of connection with a wounded world.  The bumper sticker "Not Perfect, Just Forgiven" comes to mind.  Our wounds makes us human, the freedom from having our woundedness lead us into despair, hate, anger, greed, etc.. is our release from death--our resurrection with the risen Christ.  Chuck Coleson's prison ministry, which has led so many to not let their wounds define them, had its genesis in the wounds of his ambition and lust for power.

What being resurrected means for us is living with the confidence that love overcomes death.  That our wounds present in our new life in Christ become a source of great hope for whom woundedness has led to death.  Like Christ, we can live a life that removes the defensive imperative to cover our wounds and move to dominate, to control and accumulate wealth.  Our life in Christ shows the world another way, the way of Jesus displaying his wounds to his followers as the beginning of their spiritual journey as people of the resurrection.