“A scar is a mark left on the skin after a wound or injury has healed.” (from the website of the National Health Service, United Kingdom)

I have a number of scars on my body. Fortunately, most are not obvious. There is one on my right shin from where I stepped into an open clay pipe while running across a yard when I was a young teen. It actually tore away the skin and everything underneath down to the bone. There is a thin layer of skin covering the wound. It has no feeling. Perhaps the nerves were also severed.

There is also another one on my left leg from trying to jump over a barbed-wire fence back in those same festering teen years.

I used to have them across my face, due to an accident in that same time period. But thanks to a wonderful doctor in Macon, all but one small one on my upper lip, just below my nose, are gone.

Like most teens, I was not too careful.

I have two new ones, the result of surgery. One is a small one that goes down my sternum for a couple of inches. At the top it goes a little to the right. It is from the surgery that was done by another magnificent doctor to take care of my septic arthritis and sepsis in the chest cavity. With the little marks from where the stitches were, it looks like the Hebrew letter dalet – ד – which is often used for the word ‘door.’ The few times I have shown people the scar, I tell them it’s the door to my heart.

Right below it is a small round scar from the drainage tube that was in my chest. It is beginning to fade. Most scars do over time, but they never go away completely. Like the quote at the top of this, they are reminders of the body healing itself (often with the help of skilled people).

I’ve heard a lot about the scars on Jesus’ hands and feet. I’ve heard preachers use this phrase in sermons- “We will know him by the scars in his hands.” I’ve often sung songs and hymns in church that refer to his nail-scarred hands. I’ve been thinking about those lately.

Strangely enough, the Bible never refers to Jesus’ “nail-scarred hands.” The references to his hands after the resurrection are in Luke and John. He shows his hands and side to Thomas, both with open wounds, no scars. And he uses his hands, no mention of scars so probably still bloody, to bless his disciples before he leaves.

I think this is significant. If scars are a sign of healing, and the crucifixion of Jesus- the nails in his hands and feet- were to heal (save) the world from its sin, perhaps they have not healed because we have not healed. Even to this day, Jesus’ hands and feet, his head and side, are still bleeding.

It’s not surprising. Healing for humanity is an on-going work. And, after all, it is by his wounds, not his scars, we are healed.

 

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