Margie Quinn
In second grade, a boy who will remain nameless gave me the chicken pox. The youth of today don’t know about the chicken pox, but many of us can remember the incredibly itchy and contagious virus that takes the form of little pox that decorate one’s skin. I had an abnormal case in that most of the pox showed up on my face; on my eyelids, in my ears, even on my lips. I probably had over fifty pox on my face alone. They itched, so I scratched them, and as a result, I had quite a few scars when it was all said and done.
The scarring on my face was so prominent that my parents reached out to a plastic surgeon because, with good intention, they didn’t want me to be bullied.
When I was in fourth grade, they drove me to Atlanta to have plastic surgery. The surgeon did a procedure that involved a lot of needles. I expected to wake up in the morning with a smooth face. Instead, I woke up to the same, scarred face. The surgery hadn’t worked. So, we went to another plastic surgeon. Somewhere in this process, we didn’t pursue another surgery.
I still have those scars. They have faded a little bit with time, but I can still remember my embarrassment at camp dances when a boy would ask to dance. All I could think about was how close to my face he was, how he was probably fixated on the pox dotting my face. And still, when I babysit young kids, they’ll ask me about them. I didn’t love or want the scars. I would have liked to wake up the morning after the surgery with a face that was…flawless.
In our scripture this morning, we are finally reunited with the resurrected Christ. Jesus is risen indeed, and even though Mary has told the disciples that very morning that she has seen the risen Lord, they are huddled together behind a locked door, terrified for their lives. This Easter vignette doesn’t look like what I had imagined. There’s no fanfare in the streets but a group of guys still unsure that what the scriptures had said could be fulfilled, that radical Love really could conquer the death-dealing Empire. Fear still holds them captive.
Even so, Jesus finds them where they are, stands with them in the midst of their fear and offers them peace. Somehow, they still don’t get the memo because even though he is standing there saying, “Peace be with you,” there is no “Oh, hey! It’s you!” in scripture. No recognition. So, he shows them his hands and his side. Then they rejoice, scripture tells us. Then they see the Lord.
It takes Jesus showing his scars in order for the Disciples to believe that he is who he says he is. Except for Thomas. Thomas wasn’t in the room for the first resurrection appearance. He was out picking up the pizza or taking a nap and missed the big show. When he gets back together with them, they tell him that they’ve seen Jesus. But Thomas says, "Unless I see the marks of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”
Thomas gets such a bad rap. As Lydia said to me this week, “the guy had bad publicity.” He’s frozen in time as “Doubting Thomas” as if we all deserve an immortalized nickname for that one thing we did that one time. To me, Thomas was just being honest about what he needed from Jesus. He, fairly, wanted to see what the Disciples had already witnessed.
Thomas needs to see the scars for himself.
Thomas needs to see the scars for himself. Thomas doesn’t ask Jesus to turn water into wine or raise someone from the dead. He doesn’t ask Jesus to recite the Lord’s Prayer from memory or get a voice from Heaven to speak. No, he asks Jesus for a different kind of proof:
Show me that you have lived. Show me that you have died. Show me that in new life, you haven’t forgotten. Show me that you are still you.
Thomas asks the right question, the one I would never think to ask. I would be way more concerned with Jesus proving his divinity to me, not his humanity.
All I need to see from you in order to believe, Thomas says, is proof that you still hold the stories, the markings, and the memories of the life you shared with us. That the painful, human, tactile, grounded part of your journey matters just as much as your resurrection matters.
The first thing Thomas wants to see in order to believe is Jesus’s wounds, is the proof of his suffering, is the solidarity of pain, is the markings of fear, a fear that Thomas and the disciples have a lot of at this point.
This isn’t a Doubting Thomas. This is a Determined Thomas, a Defiant Thomas, a Thomas who knows not to trust a pristine, white-washed, smoothed-over gospel but who wants, needs to see the Lord, wounds and all.
A week later, in the midst of his Resurrection Tour, Jesus gives him a response. The disciples are again in the house, this time with Thomas, and Jesus comes back for him. It has been a week, Jesus is probably trying to cover a lot of ground before he ascends to heaven and yet, he comes back for him. Meeting Thomas at his point of need, Jesus says to him, “I heard what you needed, I walked all the way back here for you, so put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side.” Thomas answers, “My Lord and my God.”
The Easter season sure is pretty, with flowers blooming and light shining through the darkness. But I’m here to tell y’all that I don’t trust a resurrection without scars. I don’t trust a body that doesn’t tell a story. I don’t trust a Savior who doesn’t see my wounds and say “Hey, me too.” Or as the poet Mary Oliver writes, “Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.”
I need the risen Lord to share in my woundedness in order for me to believe that he is who he says he is. I just do. I need Jesus to laugh with me as I show him my calloused feet, torn up by years of wearing cleats playing the sport I love. I need him to chuckle with me as I point to the scar on my left ring finger, where I tried to cut the breasts off of a Barbie doll in elementary school, my first act of feminist defiance. I need him to trace his finger over the scars on my face and just beam and say, “There is no one else who looks like you do.”
And I need him to share in my not so visible wounds, too. I need him to nod with me, with understanding in his eyes, as I describe my anxiety.. I need him to hug me as we talk about losing the people we love. I need him to clasp my hand as I tell him about my shame, about the wrongs I’ve done and the ways I’ve come up short.
My scars aren’t going anywhere. The ones you see and the ones you don’t. By Jesus taking the time to visit Thomas, by exposing his own scars, he gives Thomas and me the abundant grace of a God who comes back for us, who looks at us, wounds and all, and says, “Me too. I lived, too. I suffered, too. And I rose, too, carrying all of it with me…all of your wounds with me. Even though it is Easter and love abounds, it doesn’t mean that I have forgotten the pain you’ve had and have. So, touch my wounds, and see me. Because I will always come back for you.” That is the scarred, wounded, freeing gospel news this morning.
May it be so.