The last of five parts

Beholding His Hands and His Feet

“…Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.”

~~Jesus to Thomas, the one who doubted

Jesus commanded there be love among us, not just warm affection, but love that demands we, in honesty and humility, reckon others more important than ourselves. Such reckoning insists that we live and love in spite of our wounds —beyond them. Only then can we be one even as the Father and the Son are One. We die to our wounds, not from them so the church might live and Christ through her.

So, the church lives even with all her scars. It is to be expected. After all, so did her Lord. He stood before His frightened, grieving disciples, declaring victory by His wounds. In the book of Revelation, He stood beside the throne of heaven as the Lamb who was slain. Similarly, the church stands alive and strong before the unbelieving world, bearing the wounds of her forgiven sin. Faithful wounds, wounds of expectation, judgment, and separation; wounds of silence, malice, disunity—they should have bled her long ago. But wounds cannot destroy she for whom Christ died any more than they could destroy Christ Himself. He gave her His life to live so that she could stand before the world as a testimony of Him, and before the throne of heaven as a spotless bride.