John 20:19-31
So the other disciples told 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 in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” v.25
If Thomas could just touch the wounds of Christ, he would believe. It’s not so much that Thomas wanted some physical, tangible proof of a bodily resurrection, he wanted to touch the wounds, because if we know anything with certainty, it’s the wounds that we all collect, it’s the scars we come to wear.
Thomas didn’t say, “Unless I see His halo”. He wanted to see the wounds. The doubting Thomases of the world who hear our proclamation that Jesus is risen want proof that we wear the marks of suffering on behalf of others. They don’t want to see our halo, that’s not a mark of the Church; they don’t necessarily want to see pews filled to capacity, nor endowment fund portfolios.
They say, “If you are the Body of Christ, show me the marks of your wounds”.
● Show me how you have suffered for the sake of others, like those afraid to walk their neighborhood streets at night, and those parents who are afraid to allow their children to play outside because of stray bullets from drug dealers.
● Show me how you’ve gotten your hands dirty and covered with callouses working with unemployed coal miners in Appalachia.
● Show me the marks of compassion because you’ve been there for someone suffering with AIDS or Alzheimer’s.
The apostle Thomas identified Jesus after He had risen not by His glorified presence, but rather by the marks of His suffering. That’s the authentication Thomas sought. And he comes to us and says, “Unless I thrust my hand into the Church & find real wounds, no way will I ever believe”. Unless we carry the wounds of Christ, unless we have become, in Henri Nouwen’s phrase, “wounded healers,” because we have extended our love and compassion, we cannot say that we are the Body of Christ in the world with any ring of truth to the claim.
“If you are the Body of Christ, show me the marks of your wounds”.

The people of Israel have become impatient with God & Moses, saying that they would rather had never been freed from Egypt & forced to undergo such a terrible journey. Their most recent occasion for “murmuring” is the rather benign complaint about what provisions have been given them. They were merely grumbling about the food: manna yesterday, manna today & more manna tomorrow. God is angered by their attitude & sends a plague of poisonous serpents to visit them.

In reality, there are two separate acts, two miracles that take place. Jesus heals the disease & He cleanses the leper. The one miracle is that of a physical healing, but the most important miracle was that of restoring this outcast – who was told by others & by the religious practices of the day, that he was too “dirty,” too immoral, too impure, too damaged, too broken, to be touched – restoring him so that he knew that he was embraced by God.
“Jesus taught as one who had authority”.
The story of Jonah is not an autobiography – an historical account of some newsworthy event, nor a fictional short story, but functions rather something like a parable (didactic fiction). It’s a parable that talks about God’s universal love, and in hearing that message — that God actively seeks the lost, that God earnestly desires the salvation of those who have turned away from Him — I think we can begin to understand why Jonah ran away from God in the first place.
Into a new year