Welcome to Family Matters: Fully Human Edition. This is Melanie DiStefano. Christ is risen! Truly he is risen!

Enlightening wounds: the mystery of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I love a good mystery mostly because I enjoy solving them, but the mystery of our Lord, that is, who he is, is beyond solving. His mystery is more for the abiding in, if you will, and yet there is condescension and revelation, because he allows me and you, like the Apostle Thomas, to physically take hold of him. I dare to imagine being present in that upper room on the eighth day after Jesus’ rising from the dead. To fathom the mystery of his appearance in the midst of all those who were gathered. I dare to see in my mind’s eye my Lord’s light-bearing wounds. I believe his wounds bear a light, a light so bright it could knock me prostrate, and yet so warm and embracing it could thaw and reshape even a heart as cold and hard as mine.

I believe this within my depths and somehow I know it. Perhaps this kind of knowing is another mystery, of which Christ referred when he said, “The kingdom of God is within you.” The Lord’s wounds enlightened the disciple Thomas. How utterly mysterious that his resurrected and healed body—no longer subject to corruption, a body that transcended the laws of nature, entered physically into a locked room—still continued to bear the marks of his suffering, of his self-offering, of his holy and mysterious passion.

Our Church theologians teach that Christ appeared with his wounds in order to prove to his followers that indeed it was he, the One who suffered death on the cross. I believe this, and yet, as is the case with our Lord, the depths and breadths of who he is are limitless. And so I would add: the marks of his suffering remain in his person for many reasons, one of which is for my unbelief, particularly in the area of trusting that my personal wounds can and do bear light.

You see, as a mother of a son who has known a great deal of suffering—my son, that is—I claim a justifiable and tireless search for meaning for my Michael’s stripes. When someone you love is in pain, when it seems their body bears affliction at every term, when you become alienated from the way of life from most families you witness, there is a great temptation to doubt that God loves you, to doubt that God loves your child, to doubt that anything good can become of what on the surface appear and feel to be wounds that ache and cause division, misunderstandings, and fear—kind of like the eleven disciples who were hiding away in the upper room, actually.

At that time of their hiding, they could only understand that Christ’s wounds were unjustified. Unable to overcome, he did die, after all, and they had not yet seen his risen body. That his suffering caused them to be in a state of great insecurity and isolation, and they could only understand, worst of all, in my estimation, that his wounds were devoid of meaning. If you recall, Luke and Cleopas, in their walk to Emmaus, how they said to the Stranger who was really the unrecognized, risen Lord, “And we had hoped that Jesus would be the one to deliver his people.” They couldn’t see, just like we fail to see, that Jesus is the One who will deliver us and use us in our wounds. The could not see until Christ himself expounded to them how in the Scriptures he was revealed, and that the Christ must suffer to enter into his glory. This truth, that the miraculous would be ushered in by extreme humility and vulnerability, is something that we experience as well.

I suppose, like Thomas, Luke, and Cleopas, each one of us as Christ’s followers has our own path of discovery. In our own time, on our own unique journey, navigating our personal fears and doubts, we hopefully, eventually, come to a place where those who love him gather in his name and encounter more than we ever anticipated. We enter the mystery of all mystery. And wounds that once seemed to be only festering with pain and the cause of our demise, by his power and love become opportunities through which the light of the world enlightens those who have eyes to see.

Disabilities; losses; physical, mental, and even spiritual illnesses, when offered to God for his purposes, trusting that his Holy Spirit will use them and blow their meaning where he will for the hope and edifying of whoever might glean such from such, indeed serve a great and most mysterious purpose. This only happens when we encounter our most beautiful Lord Jesus Christ, and we know in every fiber of our being that even the most piercing wounds can become his for the shining-through. In the light of the One who is the resurrection, things that once seemed to be weaknesses we despised in ourselves and dreaded in others can be seen in their essence for all their glorious light-channelling purpose.

And lest we forget or think that this realization is a fleeting fantasy, the Lord invites us Thomases to “Come, see my hands and the place where the nails were. And touch my side where the spear pierced me through.” Our pain in this life, our stripes, our inner reality are physical reminders of God’s ways which are not our ways and past finding out. And I don’t mean to say that God inflicts pain on us, but he can use our pain for his glory.

We have a chance every day, with every encounter or experience of pain, loss, or vulnerability, to touch our Lord Jesus Christ. We have an opportunity to enter the mystery of a God who flips our reasoning upside-down and inside-out. We have an invitation from him to not only be near him but to come, receive his light, and to become even as he is. There will be likely times when my heart will forget what it has experienced in that figurative upper room, when my son’s or my family’s lot become distorted in my spiritual vision. And even then I believe he will not leave me without hope, because, as he said to Thomas, “Blessed are those who do not see and still believe.” Even then, when I spiritually lose my sight, I can choose to trust that he is victorious, and I can claim that victory because I am his, and I can turn to what other faithful followers of the Lord can see properly. Then I will let them carry me.

But for now, abiding in the dazzling light which streams through the precious wounds of my Lord Jesus’ risen body, in gratitude and worship, I cry out, “Thank you for these our stripes, my Lord and my God!”