Scarred & Perfect

John 20:19-31

 

I find this scripture to be very powerful and important. To illustrate that I go back to my college application essay, in which I wrote about two things that truly shaped who I am. The first I will share now, is that I was diagnosed with a learning disability when I was in the third grade. Being dyslexic is not simply seeing letters mixed up or reversed, but it can make working with language difficult. There are many degrees of dyslexia and I am glad that I was put in special education so that I could address my issues with language head-on. I was tested for special-ed the same time I was tested for gifted, and "passed" both with flying colors, however I could only be in one program or I would have missed most of all the normal class. As I stated, I am glad I was given the opportunity to work with the special-ed teachers who were excited to have a child in the care who was smart and motivated. See most of the kids diagnosed with a learning disability were sent to private schools in my town and those in special-ed were there because of other issues. Often I was working one-on-one with a teacher with new methods of teaching and learning they were excited to share and experiment. It was great and it really shaped me and thus what I wrote in my essay. While it was difficult to be out of class, difficult to struggle with reading (which I loved) and with my words, I was able to and I had come to realize that I have the gift to think differently then most people. I wrote that I could not imagine life without such this so-called "disability" or rather I would like to call it my "different ability."

This makes me think of a favorite theologian and sociologist, Nancy Eiesland, who died at 44 on March 10, 2009. She was what we often label disabled from a congenital bone defect, and she would state that she would hope she would still be disabled in heaven. "The reason, which seems clear enough to many disabled people, was that her identity and character were formed by the mental, physical and societal challenges of her disability. She felt that without her disability, she would "be absolutely unknown to myself and perhaps to God." (NYT March 21, 2009) This may seem very intriguing and even disturbing to some. Do note she is not saying that all disabilities will be a part of our heavenly bodies but her hope, and I do believe that some disabilities such as cancer and accidents are result of evil and would be healed by God in Heaven. Yet to see that there are no perfect body and that we are all at best temporarily able-bodied people it is important to realize that our body shapes us as much as our soul. Jesus makes it clear that we are not simply waiting for heaven, but we are not feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal and be healed even before we enter the Kingdom, for we are to help bring the Kingdom as it is in Heaven to earth. The physical is entwined with the spiritual, and while one should not simply do things for physical gratification, we cannot simply think that it is about life after death, it is our eternal life that starts when we know we participate in the Resurrection; when we know Jesus as our savior.

Well when Jesus appears in the locked room, He displays his scarred hands and His side to identify Himself. The disciples would have known Jesus' face and voice as this was their teacher, their friend, their Lord, yet Jesus displays his wounds. It must be important. He did not erase those wounds even though He conquered death itself. He comes to the disciples to identify himself as scarred and perfect, and to them and thus us as well. See John writes in this account his own Pentecost account. Unlike Luke writes in Acts, Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit upon the disciples directly and on this first day of the week. John is telling of how the church was created and "called-out" and is therefore telling us, the church, who we are with His scarred hands. We are the Body of Christ with our own scarred and perfect bodies. We participate in the resurrection with our differently able bodies.

The parallel event I wrote in my essay along with having a learning disability was an event that happened on the first day of school my senior year. See I was assaulted in the hall. My mistake was that I stood my ground but was not expecting to be punched, for I did not realize the assailant had been taking steroids and thus had a short fuse and large muscles. What I wrote is that it was of course a set-back and painful, but I could not deny that it also shaped who I am. Seeing this injury and my dyslexia as part of who I am and thus how I participate in the Resurrection is known to me because Jesus showed me who He is and who I am by demonstrating that He too was Resurrected Scarred and Perfect.

Look & Hear

John 20: 1-18

Reading the scripture I thought of two stories I believe relate. The first was a time I was on a canoe trip on Mooselookguntic Lake in rural Maine when I was about twelve. The trip was going very well, when the weather finally turned stormy and especially windy. For one full day we stayed on shore as the waves rolled in more like the ocean then a lake. The 3-4 foot waves kept us camped that day, but we had to press on the next day so parents would not worry and the waves had diminished to 2 ½ to 3 ½ feet. I remember feeling queasy before getting into the canoe. We had to go directly across the lake to head back to our vehicle and we needed to head the canoes directly into the oncoming waves to avoid being capsized. This trip across was taking much longer and when we were almost half way across our leader realized that the kid in the middle of his canoe (we had 7 people and 3 canoes) was getting quite hypothermic so he pushed on to get to the island to warm up the passenger. Also, the waves got progressively easier as we crossed the middle, but being the last canoe I did not realize that as I watched the first canoe get out of ear shot and the second as well. My canoe was still among the roughest waves and we felt defeated and scared. So I prayed. When I looked up I saw two fighter jets fly overhead (which was not unusual in our area) and one tipped his wing, to us, and my reaction was not that someone knew we were out in the middle of the lake, but that God was with us. I felt calm and went back to paddling, and within 5-10 minutes we were also past the roughest and then got to the island with little difficulty. We were all cold and wet, but because we were paddling we kept warm enough, but the passenger was changed into dry clothes wrapped in a sleeping bag near a fire sipping hot cocoa, and his color was returning. We left for the last leg a few hours later and about twenty minutes into the journey, I noticed that the lake was calmer then it had been all week. It was then that I truly realized how I knew God was with me in the middle of the lake. It was then that I realized when I saw the plane after prayer I knew God was with me, and for my canoe mate the plane was simply cool.

The second story was much more recent. I was working with a youth I have known since he was in middle school and I can tell you he is a good and theologically minded boy. However, during his senior year of high school he was hanging out with the wrong crowd. He did stay someone active in church, but he was often more interested in his friends. Well I got a phone call from him when he got in serious trouble. This time the law was even involved. I knew when he called me first that he was reaching out to God as I embodied the church/God for him as his pastor. I asked him to visit with me the next day, and we talked for a long time. I never condoned his action, but I was there as his pastor. I did finally ask him where he saw God in this and he answered "I dunno." I let the conversation go for a while longer before bringing that question back up, and again I got an "I dunno," so I started to tell him this very story. I knew a youth that got into serious trouble and the first person he called for help was his pastor, the church, for help. I could see his eyes light up as he had to admit he knew and did turn to God in his despair.

This scripture tells us of how three different people approached the resurrection that dawn. John apparently believed by simply seeing, yet Peter, who we know would believe fully, still not get it standing in the empty tomb. Mary saw angels, Mary saw Jesus (perhaps through great tears) and still did not believe, but once Jesus called her name she knew of the resurrection. My canoe mate did not see the resurrection from the jet nor the still water, but I did. I knew from the first phone conversation that Jesus was working through the youth, but he needed to hear it. The resurrection is there for all of us, but we will need to realize that we will need to look, hear, feel, smell, and sense it and often it will be different for each individual. Just as the first three according to the Gospel of John, so go looking and listening and do tell others where you had sensed the Risen Christ.