With Scars

In Homer's The Odyssey, the hero , after being away for so many years, was finally revealed for who he truly was by his now aged nurse when she caught sight of a scar from his boyhood

No matter how much time had passed, no matter what other things had happened, this was truly Odesseus.

There is a ragged little scar on my right thumb from the time as a boy I got angry at a cow that wasn't going where I wanted her to go, and my hand met up with a rusty nail.

And then there is that crack in a front tooth to remind of the day about 25 years ago when a garage door spring demonstrated that it is much stronger than I am.

And the appendectomy scar that is my souvenir from the 1965 Worlds Fair in NYC.

And the scars not visible, such as the unkind and untrue words spoken to me in seminary that changed the direction of my ministry.

And the playground bully with whom I had to deal as a child; and sudden family deaths, and mother's illness...and on and on.

We all have these scars, some visible, some not.

They are part of identifying who we are, helping us to tell the story of our lives, in joy and sorrow.

We will keep telling about them until the person we are telling says, “Oh, now I get it; I understand who you are.”

It was therefore crucial that Jesus still show the scars of his torture and death; it was the way that Thomas and the rest could be sure that it was the same Jesus whom they had known the week before.

The Jesus whom they loved did not hover above the heartache of the world;

He embraced the world and its people with all of their pains.

He touched the sorrow with care.

He lived where we live, and died as we must die.

But that is just the first part of the story, for Jesus lives as we shall live, raised from death to new life.

There is an old heresy in the church which pops up again regularly, called “Docetism.”

Docetism taught that Jesus, the Son of God, did not really suffer on the cross, that he did not really live as we must live on earth.

It was an act, they said.

Jesus only appeared to suffer, only seemed to be human. (The word 'Docetism” means “it seems.”)

Their theory was that a divine spark came down and struck Jesus when he was born, and stayed with him throughout his life.

Then this Christ separated itself form the man Jesus on the cross, leaving poor old Jesus to suffer, while the Christ, the Son of God, floats off, free from pains, suffering, and death.

This will never do.

The true teaching of the church has always insisted this idea of a divided Jesus cannot be, or else the whole Christian faith is a fraud and useless.

A Christ who only pretends to suffer and die cannot lead us through death.

Any promise made by a Christ who only pretends to die cannot be true, such promises cannot apply to us who must face death.

Christ is both God and truly a man, we must insist.

In distinction from the Gnostics of all sorts, in ancient times and still today, orthodox Christianity implicitly affirms bodily experience as the central fact of human life in relationship with the Lord Jesus in the Triune God.

Christians who suffer can identify with their Lord who suffered and conquered, and who promises that same victory to those who believe in his name.

Whatever the nature of the resurrected body is – and we do not know what that nature is – the essence of being a body is that it makes us recognizable to one another.

So the risen Lord Jesus bears the scars of human suffering in order to be recognizable to his companions.

When Thomas saw the nail wounds, he didn't need to touch them – to see them was enough.

“My Lord, and my God.” he said.

Yes, this is no pretender; this is the same Jesus that we knew last week.

The Christian faith does not deny the reality of pain, suffering, and death for our Lord Jesus and for ourselves.

It is just that death does not have the last word in our story, as it is not the last word in Jesus' story.

New life, resurrected life, involves a body.

The exact nature of that new body we do not know, but this new body we will be able to recognize as the risen Lord Jesus.

Thomas' confession of faith in the risen Lord upon seeing the wounds of Jesus is enough to let us know that we shall recognize the Lord and each other when we join that resurrected multitude in the Body of Christ.

Thomas' confession leads us to acknowledge tat our own present bodies are important.

For God cares so much about us that Jesus comes as a real human.

That gives us the cue that we should gently tend our bodies even now.

The gift of life is to be treasured, not squandered in abortion, murder, or suicide.

Earlier we mentioned an ancient heresy, Docetism.

It turns out to be be right up to date.

Some years back the “Heaven's Gate” cult was in the news.

They despised their bodies and killed themselves to try to get away from their bodies.

Just like the ancient Docetists, but with a Star Trek twist, they taught that a little divine seed was planted in them by aliens who will come back for them when they are ripe.

So they committed suicide to separate that divine fruit from the human husk so they can fly off safely when the comet passed by the earth with its hidden spaceship.

But Jesus says, “Look at my scars.”

He does not avoid the body, but transforms it.

The divine and human are put together completely and indissolubly in Jesus.

That is how much God care about this creation, and this body of ours.

He is not flying away from us.

Instead he vows to remain with us, and be available to us when we hear his word and gather at his table.

Here I am, look at my scars.

I'm still right here for you, no matter what.

Death doesn't win; God does, and that changes everything. Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.