I had the joy of preaching this morning at Madison and Orleans Lutheran Churches, part of the Ridgeway Parish. I focused on the first part of the gospel reading.
John 20:19-23
19When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 20After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
Beloved of God, grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus. Amen.
A woman wrote to an advice columnist, wondering how to relate to her “charmed” friends, now that she had experienced terrible struggle and loss in her own life. “They don’t know me anymore,” she wrote. “My friends have yet to be tested. They have yet to ‘survive.’ For some reason I cannot relate to those who have no scars…Is it wrong to wish they, too, had scars so I can feel close to them again? I want them to know me again. The new me, the one with all the scars.”
Imagine all the scars—visible and invisible—that filled the room on that first Easter evening. The disciples had lived with hope and expectation throughout their days of following Jesus. Now, that hope was gone—ripped from their hearts and minds by the cruelty of the world and the finality of death.
Fear coursed through their bodies, prompting them to hide in isolation. They waited in the gathering dark for the authorities to come for them. They had been seen following Jesus. Would they be put to death too?
In the absence of hope, accosted by pervasive fear, the disciples on that first Easter evening must have also been battered by bewilderment. Mary proclaimed that she had seen the Lord. In response, two of them had gone to the tomb and found it empty. What was happening? Surely Mary was mistaken. This had to be a cruel joke—one last humiliation. Jesus was so despised that even in death there could be no rest for his bruised and broken body. The authorities must have taken him away, so that now there was no place where the disciples could go to be in Jesus’ presence.
Wounded and reeling from the events of the week before, the disciples were scarred—by painful memories, by shame at the way they had abandoned Jesus when he needed them most, by fear that they would suffer the same fate. They were scarred by an abrupt end to all that for which they had hoped—the end of oppression and despair, victory for the oppressed, healing of body, mind, and spirit, a future marked by abundant life.
The disciples had been tested beyond anything they could have imagined. Jesus was gone. They had survived, but for how long? How would they ever go on, so scarred by all that had happened?
What happens next may no longer hold any surprise for us—we who know the story so well—but just imagine the shock and even fear the disciples must have experienced when suddenly Jesus was standing there among them. It didn’t matter that the doors were locked. It didn’t matter that they had abandoned him as he hung on the cross. It didn’t matter that he was supposed to be dead, forever gone from their lives. Jesus came and stood among them, bearing his own wounds, scarred as they were.
I suppose the marks on his hands and the wounds on his side could be considered proof that it was really him, really Jesus. But I have to imagine there’s more to the story than that. What did it mean for those scarred disciples to be given the gift of peace by their scarred leader, and teacher, and friend? What does it mean for us—scarred as we are in so many ways—to be saved by a scarred savior?
God had raised Jesus from the dead. Surely, God could have also removed the marks of the cross, so that as Jesus appeared to his disciples he would stand among them in glory—uuntouched by hate, untouched by sin, untouched by life and death as one fully human. But God doesn’t do that. It’s too important for those scars to remain, not only as proof that Jesus died on that cross, but as proof that he lived—fully human—among us, that he experienced all the heartache that we experience, even death.
Jesus shows the disciples his hands and his side, and in that moment the disciples—scarred by fear, and shame, and despair, scarred by the death of the one they loved, the one who loved them to the end—in that moment those scarred disciples experienced the good news that scarred ones can live, can rise, can bring a word of peace even as the scars remain.
Beloved ones, we who are scarred by life and death, are not alone. Jesus stands among us. He is not a distant God, far off from the harsh realities of human experience. No, Jesus is with us. He can relate to us, and we can also relate to him as one scarred as we are. Imagine a God who relates to our experiences, who knows us. Imagine. In Jesus—the one with all the scars—we know God.
In God, we live. In God, we rise. In God, we experience peace and can even share peace with others. God’s breath stirs within us, empowers us to live with our scars, equips us to offer forgiveness, hope, and healing to our neighbors near and far. At God’s feast, we become what we receive—the body of Jesus, the scarred and peace-bearing body of Jesus, sent by God to embody God’s unyielding love for this world.
Peace, beloved ones. Peace, scarred ones. Peace, with every breath, today and forever. Amen.
Thank you.