The Scripture Reading for this week is John 20:19-31.
 |
| Source |
The Sermon title is Showing the Scars.
Early Thoughts: What scars do you have? How do you carry those scars forward into the next phase of life?
As the blogpost where I got the picture to the right put it "even Jesus had scars". Jesus appears to the disciples in an upper room and reveals that the wounds of crucifixion are still visible on his resurrected body. Even in the glory of new life the scars remain.
Why? Wouldn't the promise of new life bring with it the promise that we put the hurts and wounds, including the reminders we call scars, of the old life behind us?
That is often how we want to see the world. In paradise the wounds and hurts don't apply anymore. And maybe that is partially true. Jesus offer healing of body and soul. When we are healed the wounds don't hurt so much any more. When we are healed the active bleeding has stopped. But I suggest that to be healed doesn't mean that the wound has ceased to leave a mark.
I can look over my hands and recall how most of the scars have come from. They all have a story. Some are stories of misfortune, some are stories of inattention. Over the years they have faded, some almost to the point of invisibility but if I look closely they are still there.
What stories do your scars tell? Are the stories happy, tragic, painful, traumatic or some other feeling (or mix of feelings)? How have those stories, those scars shaped who you are?
I fully believe that our lives, our selves, who we are, has been shaped by everything that we have encountered and experienced in our lives. SO our scars are a part of what makes us who we are. Why would we want to leave them behind?
Ok I know lots of reasons we might want to leave some of those scars behind. Look at what Charlie Brown has to say about his scars (though I might use the word emotional instead of mental). Those scars have stories too, and often those are really hard stories to remember. But they too have helped to shape who we are. The hope is that they are just scars, just reminders that have been healed and no longer throb.
Easter reminds us that healing and new life are a possibility. Easter reminds us that our woundedness is never permanent. But the fact that Jesus shows up in an upper room (Diana Butler Bass suggests that it is the same upper room in which they gathered the night before Jesus was arrested, and that it is the same upper room in which they will be gathered weeks later when Pentecost comes) still bearing the marks of his woundedness reminds us that healing never takes away the fact that the woundedness was one there.
Scars may seem unsightly. We may spend time, money, and labour trying to hide our scars -- the ones on the surface and the ones we bury deep inside. We may find that scar tissue itself gets in the way of something we want to do at time. But the scars, and the stories they carry, are a part of us. The wounds may be fully healed but every once in a while the scars will remind us of them. May God help us continue to heal but also to learn from the scars as we move into new life, new hope, and the promise of resurrection.
Because I like this one (I found it when looking for the cartoon above) I close with this image from Peanuts:
--Gord
