Years ago, one of my spiritual mentors, Fr. Art, used to say, “Sometimes to keep a friendship, you have to blaze a trail to your friend’s door.” Friendships cannot be forced, but they need to be maintained. Friends need to be cared for. Jesus knows that quite well. To return, Jesus – the Risen Lord – had to cut a path, blaze a trail to the door, the door where the disciples were in hiding. The first order of business of Jesus’ return was not to convince the disciples and us of him being raised from the dead, but to bring peace: reconciliation and healing with the Risen One. An article by my former professor, now Bishop Robert Barron sums up the fullness of the moment:
“When the risen Jesus presented Himself alive to His disciples, we are told, they were afraid. Their fear might not have been simply a function of their seeing something uncanny; it might have been grounded in the assumption that He was back for vengeance. However, after showing His wounds, the risen Jesus said to His friends: “Shalom,” Peace. The teacher who had urged His followers to turn the other cheek and to meet violence with forgiveness exemplified His own teaching in the most vivid way possible. And what He showed, thereby, was that the divine manner of establishing order has nothing to do with violence, retribution or eye-for-an-eye retaliation. Instead, it has to do with a love which swallows up hate, with a forgiveness which triumphs over aggression.”¹
The Risen Lord’s wounds were not incidental, but were and are essential to the reconciliation he offers. Recalling the prophet Isaiah, St. Peter writes in his first letter, “By his wounds you have been healed (1 Peter 2: 24b).”²At the same time, the marks of his crucifixion and death were the visible signs of what he suffered now transformed into living signs of his fidelity. Even though humanity had no reason to treat Jesus like he was treated, he came back to show that there was a reason why he did what he did, why he does what he does. Saint Padre Alberto Hurtado, a Jesuit priest from Chile, helps place the scene in today’s reading in the broader context of Christ’s very mission: “He suffered first for us. He came down from Heaven to earth to look for the only thing that he did not find in Heaven: pain and he took it without measure for love of man. He took it in his soul; he took it in his imagination, in his heart, in his body and in his spirit…”³ The Risen Lord’s wounds make that quite clear. Some might look upon the Lord’s passion and resurrection and wonder what it’s all about. However, before we can truly believe, we must be forgiven, reconciled: reconciled with Jesus who seeks to blaze a trail to each and every heart, reconciled with him who seeks to unite his wounds with ours and reconciled with others. Jesus knows that he has to cut through the weeds and brush in our minds and hearts, where fear becomes overgrown, in order to rescue the friendship with us he had worked so hard to make firm. Jesus is not ashamed of his wounds. Why is that you might ask? For one, he’s not ashamed of us.
Peace be with you! Fr. Charles Johnson, O.P. Notes: