Scars in Heaven

I have a scar at the base of my right index finger. As scars go, it's not much - - a delicate silvery sliver from a wound close to forty years old, the result of a playground injury. This scar is a permanent part of my earthly flesh - - a constant reminder of a screw jutting from a swing set.  When I was cut, I saw blood, but was unaware as a child, that beneath the surface of my skin microscopic cells with various specialties were at work beginning the healing process in an ordered, intricate operation. If we are paying attention, there are exhibitions of God's genius everywhere, perhaps most remarkably inside our own bodies. The healing of a wound, to me, is a tiny picture of a bigger picture. God spoke the world and all its creatures into existence, but then allowed His processes to take over - - the sowing of seeds, water cycles, life cycles, birth, growth. Colossians reminds us that Christ created all things and that He sustains them as well. The way a wound heals displays His sustenance of life. When God's creatures are wounded, He does not speak their wounds healed - - although that is not an impossibility for Him, but allows the system that He put in place to follow its planned course.

Think about it for a moment. When my flesh was pierced by that little screw, the response of my body was instantaneous. My cells rushed to work, some to stop the bleeding, others to destroy any bacterial invaders. Over a period of a few days to about 3 weeks, other specialized cells took charge, forming new flesh and new blood vessels. The edges of the wound pulled together and skin cells traveled across the newly joined surface. Finally, a fibrous tissue called collagen went to work to form my scar - - the same substance that makes up the majority of my skin, but in the case of my wound, coming together in a less structured manner in order to make needed repair quickly.  

1 Timothy 2:5 says, "There is only one God and one mediator who can reconcile God and humanity  - - the man Christ Jesus." (NLT)  Some may find it unromantic or less spiritual to think of Jesus as flesh. But, that is in fact what the Bible teaches. He is forever both God and man. In the twentieth chapter of John's gospel, Jesus shows his wounds to the disciples and the women; then again to Thomas. The Word does not use the term scar. These wounds were only three days old, after all. According to God's design, they were still in the process of repair. To me, this is the most romantic and spiritual thing of all. That Christ would take on a flesh just like the one He gave me. A flesh that must feel pain and must heal and must produce permanent scars. That is how God-made flesh operates and Christ became like us so we could become like Him.

Thomas wasn't present when Jesus appeared to the other disciples. When he showed them his crucifixion wounds, the Bible says they were filled with joy because they were seeing the Lord. When Thomas placed his fingers on Jesus' body, Christ's wounds were still tender and sore; the cells still working to fill in the wound with new tissue and blood vessels. But, for the disciples, Thomas included, it was this wounded, red, sore flesh that caused them to declare that Christ was God and Lord. Those deadly wounds on a living man were the evidence of Christ's deity. Christ's flesh and bone, does not make him less God. He is all in all - - everything. The fact that He could determine to be man and sinlessly walk a man's walk, sinlessly endure a man's pain, and sinlessly bear all men's sin should take away any doubt of His deity. He chose to live in flesh and participate in the physical processes that He created in us. He chose to live as a baby, a boy, a man - -nourishing his physical life by his own creation. He chose this because He chose a people and desires to live with them forever.

Hebrews 4 teaches that Jesus entered into Heaven as a man who is able to sympathize with our weaknesses.  He now bears the scars to prove it. As scars go, His are much - - a permanent part of His flesh from deep, traumatic, terminal wounds that are thousands of years old;  a constant reminder of nails pounded through human skin, ligaments, tendons, muscles, and nerves into rough, wooden beams by hands He'd formed of skin, ligaments, tendons, muscles, and nerves - - human hands He determined to love with an everlasting love.  A scar cannot really be removed. Modern medicine can reduce or revise them but they are always a part of our earthly body. I don't know if my little scar will remain on my resurrected body, but I know the scars of my Savior will always be - - everlasting scars to display a love that cannot be removed, revised, or reduced. I know when I see them and touch them I will say, undeniably, "My Lord and my God!"