On Good Friday, we come to cross of Christ. We behold one stricken, smitten, and afflicted. As we look upon the broken body of our Savior, we behold our own broken and wounded lives. Each of us bears the scars of a world reeling from the curse of sin.
I have a scar on my left pinkie finger that dates back to my early childhood. Somehow I got my hand on a razor when taking a bath and nearly sliced the finger off. Though I faintly remember the accident, the scar remains. For all the scars we can see, there are many more we cannot see.
Wounds that damage our body and soul leave marks that are often permanent. Some wounds happen in an instant. Just as the razor scarred my finger for life, so a word, a tone, an act can traumatize in a moment. An angry word spoken in haste may leave a permanent, unseen mark on the heart.
We bear the mark of sin. It damages the heart, the mind, the emotions and even the body. We bear marks caused by the sin of others. We bear marks caused by our sin. Most of these marks we do not readily see. Yet they persist, impacting our perception of the world around us, impacting our perception of our self, impacting our perception of God.
Sin is not simply failing to do the right thing or choosing to do the wrong thing. Sin is the unraveling of God’s good creation. We are caught up in this unraveling. We contribute to this unraveling. We live in a good world gone wrong.
On this Good Friday, on this Holy Day of Days, we behold the One who steps into this world gone wrong with unrelenting love. He bears the marks of our broken hearts.
We behold His grief, and see our hidden silent grief.
We behold His affliction, and see the affliction that paralyzes us.
We behold His scars, and know that we ourselves are scarred.
As we behold our Savior, we come to see our desperate need for healing, cleansing, restoration. We realize that the wounds of sin have crippled us. We realize that we ourselves have repeated this pattern of damage by hurting others in word and act.
As behold our Savior, we behold the wounds of love. For His scars reveal the glory of God in the midst of a broken world. God’s relentless love will not allow sin to unravel this good and wondrous creation. Jesus bears the sin’s sting of death. In Him alone the cursed power of sin is unraveled. His Love bears all the destruction, hate, deception, abuse, violence, and hatred that sin releases. His Love bears it all continues to forgive,
“Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
We come on this Good Friday and behold the Glory of God in the cross of Christ. On this mountain of mercy, we behold our hope. We behold the promise that these scars in soul and body have been taken up into God’s redeeming love. In Christ, these scars will shine with His glory, His love, His victory.
March 30, 2013 at 12:35 pm
Thanks, Doug. Also, I love how you used Grünewald’s Isenheim Altar Piece for the art. The body of the crucified Jesus is riddled with the same skin disease as the patients of the monastery which commissioned the work. There is room at the foot of the cross for all of us to gather in order to know that we too are crucified with Christ.
March 30, 2013 at 1:08 pm
Thanks Ben for highlighting the skin disease. That is helpful. We are lepers: blind to our condition, numb to our wounds. The good Lord Jesus steps into our rotting souls with healing love.