Resurrection comes on wounded feet

John 20.19-31

Maybe it's just because of "where I am" in life right now, that I am focused this year on the woundedness of Jesus in his post-resurrection appearance in John's gospel. It's the passage that is usually dubbed "The Story of Doubting Thomas." Well, obviously, it has to be me, because the story hasn't changed, and we hear it EVERY SINGLE YEAR, on the Sunday following Easter (that's part of the "kick" of God's living word - it lives, as I live...make sense? It doesn't change - but I do. You do, too.).

Anyhow, this year I am struck with Jesus' intentional showing the disciples his hands and his side (John 20.20). Jesus intentionally reveals (brings focus to) his wounds. He intentionally stands before them and says (if not in his words, then in his actions), "I understand pain." "I STILL understand pain. I didn't leave that behind in the tomb." And then...and ONLY then (following two not insignificant "speakings" of peace - which is for another "blog") does he send them out saying: "As the Father has sent me, so I send you."

Okay - this is what I am seeing/hearing..."AS the Father has sent me, knowing pain and woundedness, full of the experience of vulnerability and betrayal...That is how you are sent." Do you see? We, in the church, spend a lot of time and energy denying our own pain and woundedness and vulnerability (that which we have experienced, and that which we have caused). Jesus says, "If you are to be authentic, then you need to be 'transparent' (an over-used word) about those things." If resurrection is to be relevant, at all, then it must address that pain and those wounds and the death they reveal - or else it has nothing significant to say right now.

Now, like I said, I'm sure that my "take" on this is a result of things going on in my world. For example:

My childhood friend, Susan Wendel-Spencer (same age as me), has just published a book (I commend it to you), titled Until I Say Goodbye. Susan is a journalist, who writes like a journalist. The story she tells is gritty and real (and not for the faint of heart). She was diagnosed with ALS a couple years ago and decided that, instead of "fighting" the disease, she'd really live the life she has left. The book chronicles "a year of joy." The last one for which she had the ability to actively interact with those around her. The disease has shriveled her body and taken her ability to walk and talk. It's effects are very apparent. Her vulnerability is completely exposed to all whom she encounters. All that she knew before has died. She is wounded AND she is experiencing (and giving others the experience of) resurrection...Life, connection, love, peace, grace, new relationships RIGHT NOW (a MAJOR pet-peeve of mine is when folks only use "resurrection" talk to refer to life in heaven, when we die, in the sweet by in by. NOT! Resurrection happens anytime there is new life, springing from all of the deaths we face every day.). Because of Susan, a bunch of "childhood" friends who had lost touch with each other, have reconnected (Pretty good example of resurrection/new life, showing up right in the face of death).

"[Jesus] showed them his hands and his side." "AS the Father has sent me." "Precisely like this...wounded and vulnerable and bearing new life."

So, I finished Susan's book, worshiped and preached through Holy Week and Easter, then - with family in tow - headed to my folks' house in Tennessee, where we were to collect their (my folks') 30-foot camper/trailer. Why? Because my parents don't (can't really...that reality "catches" in my throat) use it anymore. My mother's cancer has weakened her and made her unsteady. It has become "obvious" that she is "walking on wounded feet." And as my dad handed my husband the deed to the trailer and we drove away, this became (for me, at least) the first "physical," "visual," "public" admission of that reality (The wounds which reveal the "death" of what had always been - parents who travel all over the country and world easily and frequently.). And in the recognition of that death-revealing woundedness, there is resurrection (New life with a trailer! New stories, and laughter and adventures!).

See? The wounds are real. They hurt. They make us cry. They make us viscerally aware of the reality of death. BUT they do not keep life/new life from taking shape.

When we deny the wounds, we deny the death. And when we deny the death, we deny the new thing that is coming (like the seed that falls to the ground and dies, in order to become a piece of fruit - which brings nourishment to others - ala John 12.24).

It's not easy, the world tells us to deny our wounds at all cost - because otherwise, "they will be the end of you!" So, we spend way too much time and money and energy on image, and make-up, and wearing masks of all sorts...which is kind of ironic - because, let's face it, we are all wounded. THAT reality has the power to bind us together, if we're brave enough.

I believe, with all my heart, that if we (who are "the church") would have the courage to go into the world AS Jesus went (wounds exposed and the memory of pain still real), then we would have a more hopeful, honest, real, authentic, and transformative word of hope for the world, which needs desperately to be freed to confront its wounds (collectively and individually) and the death they reveal - so that new life (i.e. resurrection) can begin.