As I near the end of my high school career, preparing to say goodbye and trying feverishly to thank every beautiful soul who the stars have blessed me with over the past four years, I find such gratefulness in my heart. Gratefulness for the smiles, the people who could make me throw my head back in laughter when I was on the brink of tears. Gratefulness for the sweetness, the gentle words those who God sent my way said to heal parts of my heart I thought were beyond repair. And gratefulness for the strength of my tribe who have held me when I didn’t have the strength to stand, who taught me to breath once more. Yet even as my soul brims with mirth at the thought of the near future, another part of me grieves over everything that once was, everything that used to be, everything that has changed forever. Before this pandemic, these four years, I thought my life would look a lot different. I thought there’d be people by my side that I haven’t seen in years; I thought I’d be living here instead of moving halfway across the country. I thought the things I loved would be with me for years to come. Never for a moment did I think I’d have to say so many goodbyes, have to turn away from so many faces, and have to walk away from so many roads.
Have you ever been there? Standing on the edge of a cliff, ready to jump into the unknown, only to look back and wonder how you got there in the first place? The feeling can be bitter or sweet, depending on the trail you trekked to get there. Most days I’m so thankful to God for the life I have, but every once in a while, grief settles in and I wonder why this is the life Jesus chose for me. Because let’s be honest – life is hard, and sometimes the weight of the world can be so overwhelming and cuts so deep, leaving scars that cut to the bone. Friends betray us. Loved ones forsake us. Opportunity looks passed us to someone else, and we wonder if we’re good enough, if we’re worthy, if we’re remembered in the universe’s grand scheme of goodness.
Yet on this Easter Sunday, I ask that we recall one of the most famous passages in Scripture, whenever Jesus visited the disciples in the locked room and asked Thomas to put his fingers in the holes on His hands, his hand in the gash on His side. Reading this passage this morning, I suddenly noticed something that’s never occurred to me before; if Jesus is the King of the world, the God of miracles who could raise Himself from the dead, why couldn’t He heal his own body? After all, surely healing a physical ailment is far simpler than bringing a spirit back from the depths, and He already had healed countless of physical disabilities and illnesses. While the Gospels do not reveal God’s rational to us, I believe two answers satisfy this question, the first being evidence without a shadow of a doubt. If Jesus had risen from the dead in a perfectly new and healed body with flawless skin, would anyone had believed He was the same man who was battered, beaten, bloodied, broken, and bruised on a cross not three days before? The Pharisees already feared His disciples would try to steal the body to claim Christ lived, the only reason guards were outside His tomb in the first place. Therefore, how could they argue if the same body they sent to die a criminal’s death was suddenly standing in front of them, living, breathing, full of light and life?
Secondly, I believe Jesus chose not to return in a completely healed body because His scars were more than just an afterthought or a critical piece of evidence to His revival. His scars were a visible representation of the price paid in full for the weight of this world’s sin, shame, guilt, grief, and everything that has been shattered and irreversible changed by evil. While not all of us have such obvious scars, we all bear marks from the battles we’ve fought, some of our choosing, some not. Like Jesus, we don’t always get to choose what happens to us or the consequences that follow. All we get to choose is how we live through that heartache and who we are on the other side of it. Jesus had those scars for the rest of His time on Earth, and we’ll always have our own to wrestle with and heal throughout our time here. However, unlike Jesus, HaShem will never leave nor forsake us because of Christ’s sacrifice. Because Christ took the punishment of the world on His shoulders, we never have to be pierced without God being there; we never have to run in the darkness without the Spirit holding our hand, guiding us home. And through that same spirit, we are sent an entire tribe of loved ones to walk together, seek advice, laugh in remembrance of the good times, and hope in the promise of tomorrow. May we find the courage to share our scars with those God sent our way, may we thank those who have unknowingly helped us on life’s journey, and may we never forgot that even when life isn’t good, God is and always will be.
Last Love 