Beautiful Scars

Why did this have to happen to me?

What was God's purpose in this?

I don't want to talk about this part of my past...

Scars are part of our story; stories we'd undo if we could, stories that shouldn't be there. They're also part of our body, but they don't look normal; Instead, they look and feel awkward...

I've sometimes wondered why the resurrected Jesus, with his perfect body, still had scars on his hands and feet. Shouldn't they have been eliminated? Aren't they awkward and unseemly? Apparently not to God...

For this is what he willed Jesus' final perfected body to look like, with holes in his hands and side (John 20:27). But think about it for a moment. Take away the scars and what do you get? You remove the greatest marker of Jesus' story. The most beautiful event and simultaneously the most tragic event in human history is represented through these awkward features on Christ's body. Should they have been there to begin with? No. In one sense, the crucifixion shouldn't have happened, the trial was a sham, the accusations unjust - an innocent man shouldn't have died like that. But also yes...For this was his purpose, this was his story that God destined him to walk - that the Almighty God should become vulnerable, the Righteous One suffer for the wicked, the Holy One counted as a sinner, and the Perfect take on a scarred body.

Ultimately, you can't have the real Jesus without his scars. They tell us about who he really is - that this was a man who knew no limits to enduring suffering that he might show us his love. Furthermore, His scars help us in our own scarred stories. We often want to blot out these stories because they're too painful to remember, but we might similarly imagine Jesus looking at his own scarred hands. They may remind him of the stinging pain as nails pierced through his skin and ligaments. He may remember Judas' betrayal, Peter's denial, the sight of all his closest friends fleeing through the woods in his worst hour. He may remember the panic of feeling his Father's absence for the very first time. These scars may very likely be a painful memory that he'd like to forget. But Isaiah 53 says that after this pain, "he shall see the result of the suffering of his soul and be satisfied".

Instead of pain, now his scars remind him of the great goal he accomplished, the love restored and justice satisfied. From the outside, onlookers may pity this man with holes in his hands, but the man, himself, knows what the power of God's grace will do with scars - turn them into something beautiful. For God's grace has turned these unseemly scars into a peculiar glory - a shameful death made into a beautiful sacrifice, a righteous death given for unrighteous lives, and a humble servant exalted to the highest throne. What was utterly shameful to the world, God has made infinitely glorious through the crucible of suffering.

The Christian life is learning to wear our scars through God's grace as Jesus did. Just as Jesus' life was "made perfect through what he suffered" (Heb. 2:10), so even now God is producing something in us more valuable than gold. We pity the poor woman who barely scrapes by, or the man who suffers cruelty at the hands of others and ask "where is God in this person's suffering?" We look at the concentration camps and wonder "where is God in such a horrifically dark place?" The answer is He's right there among them. What we can't see is God's grace overflowing through these scarred lives, producing an eternal weight of glory that outweighs their momentary suffering. What the onlookers can't see is the joy in Betsy Ten Boom's eyes as she utters her last words in the concentration camp, "there is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still." God meets us even in the darkest places- even when it feels like there's no way our story could end well. He will meet us there, and he will work our stories for good if we trust His grace to carry us through. The same One who makes image-bearers of God out of dirt, and makes Jesus' scars into markers of love, will likewise turn our scars into glorious features that shine into eternity.

"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.

For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."

-2 Corinthians 4:16-18