EASTER 3 Year B HC 19-4-15
‘Jesus said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands
and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see
that I have”’ (Luke 24: 38-39).
As with so many of the resurrection stories, there’s a dreamlike quality to the Gospel reading we’ve heard.
But Jesus says to his disciples ‘Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself’. It’s hard to imagine
what those wounds must have been like, once so brutal and grotesque, but now transformed by the
resurrection. Yet wounds they remain, even if they’re transfigured with glory. Jesus hasn’t lost his
wounds, they haven’t been taken away; instead, they’ve been glorified.
There are many things that can wound us in life, and those wounds often never entirely heal; and even
when they do heal we can be left with visible scars. People who’ve been bullied or belittled in childhood
can have wounds that trouble them all their lives, so that an overbearing boss or a sneering remark can rip
them open painfully again and the person is back to where they started emotionally, and self-confidence
and self-esteem are bleeding painfully once more. Perhaps one of the most shocking examples of this –
and one that’s been much in the news of course – are the wounds left by child abuse, where people suffer
emotionally all their lives because they were sexually abused when they were children. ‘Look at my hands
and my feet’ – ‘Here are the wounds I’ve been given; they’ve become part of me; they remain part of who I
am.’
There are many people in this world who’ve had to learn to live with their wounds. I guess we’ve all got
them, but some may be more private, or better concealed, than others; wounds of disappointment,
wounds of rejection, wounds of shame, wounds of loneliness, wounds of sorrow. We’re all the walking
wounded. But then we’re in good company because Jesus is among the walking wounded: ‘Look at my
hands and my feet’.
We carry our wounds because we can do nothing else but carry them; they’ve been given to us and they
always remain part of us in some form or other. The prophet Zechariah puts it very movingly, perhaps
dimly seeing Jesus: ‘And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall
answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends’ (Zechariah 3: 16).
But we can remember some other words about Jesus’ wounds. In the prophet Isaiah we read ‘He was
wounded for our transgressions, and he was crushed for our iniquities, and the punishment that made us
whole was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed’ (Isaiah 53:5). Jesus may be wounded, and he may
carry those wounds through and beyond his resurrection, but he’s God's wounded healer: through his
wounds we are healed. Jesus' suffering and death brought joy and life. His humiliation brought glory; his
rejection created a community of love. And as followers of Jesus we can also allow our wounds to bring
healing to others.
The Dutch writer Henri Nouwen, who suffered several serious bouts of clinical depression, said: ‘To enter
into solidarity with a suffering person does not mean that we have to talk with that person about our own
suffering. Speaking about our own pain is seldom helpful for someone who’s in pain. A wounded healer is
someone who can listen to a person in pain without having to speak about his or her own wounds. When
we’ve lived through a painful depression, we can listen with great attentiveness and love to a depressed
friend without mentioning our experience. Mostly it’s better not to direct a suffering person's attention to
ourselves. We have to trust that our own bandaged wounds will allow us to listen to others with our
whole beings. That is healing.’
Nobody escapes being wounded. We’re all wounded people. The question isn’t ‘How can we hide our
wounds?’ so we don't have to be embarrassed, but ‘How can we put our woundedness in the service of
others?’ When our wounds cease to be a source of shame, and become a source of healing, then we’ve
become wounded healers.
So the things about ourselves that we might fear to be shameful can in fact be the very things that enable
us to minister life and health to others. Do we see this in the resurrection of Jesus? Of course! He returns
with his wounds, and that heals his frightened disciples; the doubts of Thomas are removed by his wounds,
and the gathered disciples are given faith and hope again when he shows them his hands and his feet. And
we can minister to others in the same way, just as Henri Nouwen says. The wounds which might seem to
be our shame can be our glory; the things that might feel like weaknesses can be a source of strength to
others. If we’re honest with ourselves about our wounds then we gain a sort of strength, and that strength
can be a blessing to those who suffer as we have. So if we’re healed by Jesus’ wounds, we can believe that
those who suffer might be healed by our wounds too.
Do you remember these words of St Teresa of Avila (I know I’ve quoted them before):
‘Christ has no body now on earth but yours; no hands but yours; no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes
through which the compassion of Christ must look out on the world. Yours are the feet with which He is to
go about doing good. Yours are the hands with which He is to bless His people.’
Perhaps we’ve thought we needed to be strong or good or perfect to live out those words, when all along
it’s been alright to be weak and broken and wounded. If that’s really so then we’ve all got something to
offer, we’ve all got blessings to give, however damaged we know ourselves to be. Jesus rises from the
dead with his wounds, and when he rises in us our wounds can be a source of life for others, and with him
we can say ‘Look at my hands and my feet.’