Known by His Wounds

The resurrection body kept its scars. That was not an oversight. It was the point.

I helped my oldest son move into his new house today.

A home of their own. Praise God for that.

Somewhere in the unpacking they found some things that did not survive the trailer. Damaged goods. Every move has them.

My wife looked at our daughter-in-law and said she was extremely familiar with quick moves and losing things.

One sentence. Our whole story was inside it.

I ran an errand later and ended up sitting in my car, not moving. Just that line, replaying.

Quick moves. Lost things.

I have walked this road of faith since I was twelve. A lot of it lonely. Some of it faithful. Some of it extremely stupid. I ended up in situations I had no business being in, and I did not walk out of them unmarked.

You know the Johnny Cash song Hurt. That is how looking back feels some days. A man counts his years, sees the damage in the trailer, and wishes he could turn the tide for the people he loves. Erase some of those pains. Carry the boxes differently.

I sat in that car as a husband. A father. Now a grandfather. And I asked God why the old wounds still show.

Here is what came back.

My life is scarred. So is my Savior’s.

That is how I have always recognized him. Not by a feeling. Not by a face in a painting. By the scars. A scarred man knows a scarred King when he sees one.

Hold that thought.

This weekend half the country sat in a theater and watched a story about a man who was gone twenty years. He comes home dressed as a beggar. Nobody knows him. Not his people. Not his house.

One old servant washes his feet, finds a scar on his leg, and knows her king.

Three thousand years old, and it just did 264 million dollars in one weekend. Because something in every man knows it is true. You are not known by your face. You are known by what you carry.

Here is what Hollywood did not tell you.

The Bible ran that scene first. And harder.

When Jesus rose from the dead, he walked seven miles with two of his own disciples. They talked with him the whole road.

"But their eyes were holden that they should not know him." (Luke 24:16)

His face did not prove it. His voice did not prove it.

Then he stood in a shut room full of men who had watched him die, and he gave them the proof.

"He shewed unto them his hands and his side. Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord." (John 20:20)

Read that slowly. God raised his Son in a glorified body. Perfect. Deathless. And he left the scars in it.

That was not an oversight. Heaven does not do oversights.

The scars were prophesied by name centuries before the nails. There is a verse in the Old Testament that asks the risen King a question about his hands, and he answers it.

And there is a verse at the end of the Book that shows what his body looks like in heaven right now. The scars are still there.

That is behind the line.