Reconciliation, with Scars

On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.

John 20:19-20

I’d never thought of the relationship between scars and reconciliation until recently. But for some time now I have been in the school of reconciliation, as it were, while the Lord leads me through a landscape of broken relationships and wounded people. I want to look away, to cry, enough! But the wounding is everywhere, and I cannot ignore the cries of the wounded, not even my own.

Jesus is here, tending His people.

He walks through doors locked by betrayal, confusion, and mistrust. He passes through them, as if they were not there. He stands among the fearful and announces, “Peace be with you.” Startled, the fragmented look up. It’s in that moment the Risen One shows them His scars. Wounds of hatred and fear. Yet they are healed. Visible, but whole again.

Some physical wounds go so deep that they destroy the skin’s ability to scaffold and rebuild itself. I learned this against my will, as I tended my son’s wounds for eighteen months after he incurred third and fourth degree burns over almost half his body in a house fire.

I can see Jesus’ scars in my mind’s eye, bumpy, sinewy, ugly. I can feel their imperfect fusion on the hands of the Perfect One.

Jesus had to be healed.

The thought stuns me.

The resurrected Christ was a healed Christ. And it is in that scar power He approached the one who betrayed him.

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.”

John 21:15

By the end of this brave conversation, Jesus and Peter would be fully reconciled, with scars. 

I believe full reconciliation is possible, with scars. We will be wounded in this earthen journey, sometimes by those closest to us. And we will wound others.

Yet the One who heals is the same one who Himself was wounded, healed, and scarred that we may know the real, beautiful-ugly truth of love. #reconciliation Share on X

Love has scars. 

And scars help us believe that there is a power greater than the thousand deaths we experience in this life. There is resurrection power that closes wounds, walks through the walls we construct between one another, and declares peace be with you.

If this causes a longing for healing to rise up in you, take the scarred hand of Jesus today and talk to Him about it. With Him, we can walk through the walls that separate us. Love is a beautiful, scarred affair. May our scars testify to the power of reconciliation today.

Great Reconciling Lord, I have wounded and been wounded. Would you heal me, and them, and speak peace to Your children today? Amen.

@audreycfrank

Photo by Jametlene Reskp on Unsplash