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This week, throughout which the hymns of Thomas Sunday continue to be chanted in church-services, let’s think about why it is specifically the woundsof the risen Lord that convince Thomas that his Lord and his God is. Thomas had been traumatized, as had been the other Apostles, by the triumph of injustice over Jesus, Who was publicly humiliated, crucified, dead and buried. Jesus, Who was innocent of the charges brought against Him, Who had only done good for others, was executed like a criminal, and those who had committed this crime got away with it. How could God, if He is God, if He is at all, have let this happen?
This question, I mean, the question arising from the senseless, entirely-unjust violence suffered by innocent people, is the one that most often makes it hard to believe in God. Hence the disbelief of Thomas. But here’s why the wounds of the risen Lord renew the Apostle’s faith: The Lord, even after His resurrection, continues to carry the wounds inflicted on Him, on His risen Body. The Body of Christ carries the evidenceof the crimes committed. The evidence, my friends, is not erased, not forgotten by God, not swept under the rug, no. The wounds of all those who suffer at the hands of unjust and mindless violence are carried henceforth on the Body of Christ, no longer harmed by the wounds, but testifying to all the injustice that will, in the end, in God’s time, be judged by Him.
Of course, these wounds are an open invitation to repent, for those who have been inflicting such wounds on the Body of Christ; on human beings in this world that God so loved, that He sent His only-begotten Son into it and into all its madness. These wounds are also enabling us, in communion with Him, to be partakers of the risen-yet-wounded, new Life in Him. We are empowered to carry also the wounds, without being harmed or deadened by them. As we continue to witness, in our unjust world, a lot of injustice that seems to hold power, that seems to be triumphing, at times, we are also given to know and to trust that God’s only-begotten Son holds on to the evidence of the crimes, carrying the wounds on His precious Body. Lord, help us co-carry the wounds, by Your grace, in faith and patience and wisdom and love. Our Lord and our God, glory be to You.
