I still have a scar on my forearm from the fourth grade. I was playing with squirt guns with my neighbor and as I ducked her onslaught, I fell backwards into a window well in my backyard. Somehow, my arm went right through the glass. I looked at the big gash in my arm and said, “Mom?! I think I need a bandaid.” The second she saw the wound, she screeched for my dad, “Paul!” And he raced over with towels to stop the bleeding. I needed two rows of stitches and couldn’t go swimming for the rest of the summer.
At the same time, or I think it was the same time, or somehow, for some reason, I conflate the two things, my parents were talking about divorce. I remember my mom thinking about taking all eight of us kids up to Marion, Indiana, to live with our grandparents. I remember my mom crying with her friends at the bottom of the driveway. She went to mass every morning. I remember my dad working a lot. They saw therapists. My dad got a new job. And then, eventually, at the end of every week, there were flowers and new sun catchers that reflected the light in rainbows on the kitchen walls.
I was only in fourth grade, the same age as my son now. I didn’t know exactly what was going on, but I just remember that things were really hard and really scary and really uncertain for awhile. That and I couldn’t go swimming for the whole summer. It felt like a long time.
I still have that scar, that reminder of that tough summer, a story, etched in my skin like an engraving, a testimony that says that my family got through a really tough time and came out on the other side, not unscathed, but somehow more whole.
There are other scars, of course. The tendonitis that is still there from my cross country days, the trauma of middle school, how I still worry about how I’ll pay my bills, the deep hole left from the death of my little brother. I have calluses and stretch marks, wrinkles and piercings, sunspots and grey hair. They all tell me where I’ve been, and also, that I can survive wherever it is that I’m going.
And I’ve caused some wounds myself. I’ve broken some hearts and caused some tears. My kids will have their own cuts and bruises, heartbreaks and devastations. They’ll have their stories, etched in their skin and worn on their hearts.
I guess that’s why I like tattoos. They tell stories on our bodies, just like scars do. They’re symbols of beautiful resilience, indicators that pain and beauty are not exclusive.
And that’s why I love Thomas. That’s why I love this resurrection story. Because in it, bodies matter. Because in it, doubt is ok. In it, peace is offered, and in it, resurrection doesn’t mean perfection. It’s something else. It holds both belief and doubt. It holds both fear and boldness. It holds both the broken and the whole. Together.
Thomas gets such a bad rap. But, I bet you could all guess, he’s my favorite. He’s my favorite because he doubts, because he needs fleshiness, because he is out there doing something while everyone else is huddled inside, cowering, paralyzed, licking their wounds.
He’s been out there, outside, in the world, although it doesn’t say what he’s been up to. Maybe he goes right back to his life before Jesus came, or maybe he’s out there proclaiming that Jesus is still Lord even though he’s dead, or maybe he was wandering around the shore of the Sea of Galilee, wondering what to do next. Whatever the case, while all the rest of them are cowering behind locked doors, he is out there, doing something.
He’s out there, and he misses the big announcement, the big hoopla, the fireworks and the parade and the regular program interruption that Jesus is alive, flesh and bone, walking around, entering rooms, talking and showing his scars, alive.
So he rushes in. And his friends tell him, “You missed it! Jesus is alive, flesh and bone, walking around, he came in this room, he showed us his scars, he breathed on us, really breathing, real breath alive!”
And Thomas says, “um. no.” Nope. Negative. Nada. No way. No no nonono.
And they say, “yes, oh yes. Seriously. Honest to God. Cross our hearts. For sure. Really. Yesyesyes.”
So Thomas, not wanting to argue with them, says, essentially, “I need to see it to believe it.”
To believe. “To hold dear, esteem, trust” - the etymology of this word seems more freeing to me, rather than defining belief as the simple logical affirmation that something is true. But to hold dear. To hold in your heart. To believe.
Thomas just can’t believe. His heart is so broken, he can’t hold this in his heart. His savior is gone, crucified in the most horrific of ways, the one he questions for directions, the one he was going to follow into Jerusalem to death. His savior, his friend, his hope, his whole life, gone.
And I wonder how Thomas felt, that long long week, still wandering around, still trying to keep relationships with folks he clearly thought were going cookoo. He must have felt a bit like a pariah, an outsider, “the nonbeliever.” Did they whisper about him behind his back? Did they ignore him? Did they tell him he was going to hell? Did they kick him out of their schools and megachurches? Did they gloat with bumper stickers and tracts with bad theology? Did they stop inviting him to their potlucks?
I wonder if Thomas felt isolated. Alone. Lost. Without community.
Because he didn’t understand what they understood. And they didn’t understand what he understood.
And I wonder why Thomas would need to touch Jesus’ wounds in order to believe? Why his wounds? Why would he want that, instead of saying, I don’t know, “Unless I hug him, or wash his feet, or have communion, or play a game of pinocle with him, I won’t believe.” Why the wounds? What is it about Jesus’ wounds that Thomas needs?
Maybe it’s because Thomas is in so much pain himself. Not only has he seen his Lord crucified, not only did he miss the BIG ANNOUNCEMENT, but he’s gone a week feeling alone, left out, isolated. I could imagine that Thomas was about to give up the whole gig. Go back home and do whatever it was he was doing before Jesus came along and ruined everything.
Go back home with the scars and the shame and the doubt from not just Jesus’ life and death, but from this last week of separation from his community.
And then, finally, Jesus comes. He comes, even though the doors to Thomas’ heart were shut and locked. In he comes and he speaks directly to Thomas in words that he can hear.
“Come. Come and touch. Touch my hands where the nails were. Feel the scar in my side where they cut me open. Look in to my eyes - see the pain and betrayal and abandonment and isolation that I have once felt - See, and touch, and believe.”
Jesus comes to Thomas - and to the disciples - and to the rest of us, through the one way that finally binds God to us and us to God - through suffering. He comes to us all, tells us all, see the holes in my hands, the wound in my side. Through the pain and remorse and humiliation and isolation that we’ve all felt in our lives. “Come,” Jesus says, “Come, touch the pain, because I’ve felt it too. And I’m with you through it all. Peace be with you.” The resurrected Jesus is recognized, not by his fabulous new beach body, not by his suddenly smooth skin or shining white robes, not by his post-resurrection mansion or his sporty new car, but by his wounds. Jesus is known by his wounds.
“And you know what, Thomas?, “Jesus says, “ You know what? There’s gonna be a whole slew of people who believe who don’t get to be this close to me, to my pain, to what I’ve been through. They’re not going to get the real fleshy me in the real fleshy world. And they’re still going to hold me dear. Boy, are they blessed. They will see their own scars and their pain and their wounds and they’ll see me. They’ll see me in their scars. Peace to them. Peace to you.”
I think it’s important to note that Jesus says, “Peace be with you” before he shows them his wounds. “Peace be with you. Have peace. Be at peace. I’m going to show you a reminder of the worst thing that ever happened in your life, but take care, have peace, hold both the peace and the memory together.”
Peace to those who’ve experienced terrifying, horrific things in their lives. Peace to you, who’ve seen death, who’ve felt despair, who’ve felt lost and lonely and isolated. Peace to you.” “I’ve been through that, too,” Jesus says. “We’re not so different, you and I, save one thing, I went through it all, all the bad and all the feels and all the pain, and I offer you peace.”
Peace to you who can’t see your loved ones in the hospital, peace to you on ventilators, peace to you wearing masks, and delivering the groceries and caring for the sick, peace to you who are worrying and sitting alone inside.
Peace to you, who’ve lost a loved one, or experienced divorce, or were innocent and spent years on death row. Peace to you, who worry about feeding your children, or wake up in the middle of the night with anxiety. Peace to you who don’t have retirement plans. Peace, amidst your addiction, amidst your worry, in the middle of a pandemic. Peace to the ten year old you who’s worried about her parents and the bills and where she’ll go to school next year and who can’t swim for a whole summer. Peace to you. Peace. To you.
And sometimes that peace is so easy to miss. So easy to doubt. So difficult to see past the pain and the hurt and the wounds still gushing, or just now healing, or formed in a tough, hard scar. But you’re blessed. Because you want to see, or you need to see, or you have seen, or you thought you saw this one hazy, shaded, fuzzy memory of a time. Maybe you saw once and yet you’re still hiding behind closed doors. Maybe you’ve always wanted to see, but never could.
You don’t see and you still believe - or are trying to believe, or you want to want to believe - you still set your heart on this one thing, that Jesus came to give you life, life abundant, or that there’s still hope in the world, or that love exists. That somehow, though everything in the world seems contrary to this thought, you set your heart on Jesus, or on hope. or on love, or maybe just on stubborn persistence. You come in to community. You eat and drink and touch wounds and have peace. You have peace and hold me dear, as I hold you. Have Peace. Peace be with you.
Those scars are your peace, those places that have healed over and left their mark, those places that tell our stories of getting through the hard times and out to all the resurrections on the other side. These scars are the stories we carry that tell us that we’re not alone, that we’re both broken and whole. That’s what resurrection looks like. It comes after a total death. It still carries the scars. It is embodied. It is real. It comes with peace.
As we enter in to the unknown, as we step out of these doors into a new world of resurrection, after the pandemic is over and the vaccine has been made and the economy has recovered, we will still have our scars, and they will tell our story for the rest of our lives. Life is going to be different. Some things can’t go back the way they were before. We will have our mistakes, those places where we’ve wounded each other and ourselves and our earth. We will have hurt and brokenness. But it comes with Christ’s peace. Through it comes resurrection.
Reach out to the holes in his hands and the wound in his side. Reach out to touch Christ’s pain. In it you will find your own resurrection. You will be both broken and made whole. Peace can be found in the scars.
Thanks be to God.
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