John 20: 19-31

On the evening of that first day of the week,
when the doors were locked, where the disciples were,
for fear of the Jews,
Jesus came and stood in their midst
and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.
The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you.
As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them,
“Receive the Holy Spirit.
Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them,
and whose sins you retain are retained.”

Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve,
was not with them when Jesus came.
So the other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.”
But he said to them,
“Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands
and put my finger into the nailmarks
and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

Now a week later his disciples were again inside
and Thomas was with them.
Jesus came, although the doors were locked,
and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.”
Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands,
and bring your hand and put it into my side,
and do not be unbelieving, but believe.”
Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me?
Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples
that are not written in this book.
But these are written that you may come to believe
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,
and that through this belief you may have life in his name.

According to statistics, 11.5 million cosmetic procedures were done in 2006 in the United States alone.  Over 3 million received Botox treatments.  Almost 1.5 million underwent laser hair removal.  And  there were approximately 400,000 patients for liposuction and another 400,000 for breast augmentation.

Thanks to today's advanced medical technology and an outrageously beauty-conscious culture, more and more men and women are going for cosmetic procedures.  An ad for the metrosexual lifestyle may as well go:  "Got a problem with a body part? Just fix it!"

That's why there's something very wrong with today's Gospel scene.  When most of us would prefer to hide our smallest blemish, the Risen Lord shows off his wounds!  And it gets worse when you realize that the Lord's resurrection actually gives him a once-in-a-lifetime chance to exchange his old body for a brand new one, but what does he do?  He chooses to keep his wounds! 

I don’t know about you, but doesn’t that's really crazy, isn't it?  If I were going to rise from the dead and get a brand new body in the process, why keep the wounds?  Some of us here can’t even wait for our resurrection to fix our faces and bodies.  The slightest scar, the slightest mark, the slightest pimple--all this has to go asap, never mind how much.

But mind you, when we talk about the Risen Lord, we aren’t even just talking about scars or marks, much less pimples.  Remember what Thomas said:  “I will never believe (that he has risen) without putting my finger in the nailmarks and my hand into his side.”  It’s even more graphic in Filipino:  “…hangga’t hindi ko isinusuot ang mga daliri ko sa kanyang mga sugat…”  Putting the finger and hand into the wounds? 

Looks like these aren’t just scars that we’re talking about—we’re talking about open, gaping wounds here.  For some strange mysterious and mystifying reason, the Risen Lord, even after transforming his earthly body into a risen body, has chosen to retain the wounds he got from the cross—and to keep them fresh and open.  In fact, to this day, the Risen Christ continues to bear these open gaping wounds in his body.

So the question is:  “Why?”  Why keep the wounds if you can have a totally brand new risen body?

I think we can get a clue from soldiers who have had their share of battles and bear scars from battles in their bodies.  It is not a rare practice for these soldiers to show their scars to friends and to people, if only to prove their heroism and love of country. 

Perhaps in the same way, our Lord considers his wounds as marks of his heroism and great love for us, the love that made him end up on the cross.  Maybe every time we think of him, he wants us never to forget his love for us.

Also, soldiers sometimes examine their wounds themselves to remember their experiences and to remind themselves of what they have been through.  Some soldiers have several wounds received from several battles, and they almost have names for every single wound in their body. 

Maybe our Lord is also like that.  When he examines the wounds that he continues to bear in his risen body, maybe he is also reading the names of the people for whom he suffered those wounds.  He reads our names, yours and mine, in every wound that he has received in his suffering and death.

When we think about it, we aren’t too different from the Lord when we love.  When we love, we make ourselves vulnerable and often get wounded in the process.  There seems to be no way of getting around that, at least not in this imperfect world of ours.  Interestingly, the Chinese term for “love”—in Hokkien “tia” and in Mandarin “teng”—sounds like “pain,” and that doesn’t seem to be any accident.  When we love, we almost always have to suffer too.  And the reason for this is that when we love, we allow ourselves to be affected by the person we love.   If something not-so-good happens to a dear friend, if our child has a problem, we get hurt and we suffer because we love them.  Or, if the person we love happens to be a klutz—or worse, a bastard—expect your heart to be broken and battered.

But the important thing is to love even if we get hurt.  Now don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying that we should become masochists and let people we love step all over us.  That’s a totally different story.  I’m not talking about the neurotic codependencies that some of us are sometimes suffer from, where we claim that we’re suffering out of love when in fact we're only doing it out of a neurotic need. 

I’m talking about loving in the real sense—wanting and working for what’s best and what’s right for the person we love—and accepting the pain that goes with that.  And often this might mean being tough even if we prefer to give in, saying “no” to the person we love even if he or she would be more pleased with us if we said “yes.”  Sometimes this is more difficult, isn’t it?  And the wounds we get when we do this are deeper and more painful. 

That’s the kind of loving that Christ did:  He didn’t insist on giving in to his enemies just to get their love.  He stood his ground because he loved the people so much all he wanted for them was what was right.  That’s why he ended up with wounds, on the cross.

At the end of our lives, our Lord will ask us only one question:  “How have you loved?”  And we will answer not through words but only in silence.  In silence we shall open our hearts full of wounds, and each wound will have a name.

- Fr. JG, SJ

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