Scars

O God, look down from heav'n and see:
Alone, you pierce the veil
and know the wounds that do not bleed,
the grief of hopes that fail.

So bend your ear to heart-rent cries
gone hoarse with all the years,
too soft to pierce the distant skies:
Hear us and count our tears.

What if these wounds should never heal,
these wrongs be not undone?
Before you throne then shall we kneel
as torn as your own son?

For surely he has borne our pain
as he has died our death,
and still the marks on him are seen,
yet peace is in his breath.

Shall heaven be a wedding feast
where all the broken come,
called from the highways to their seats
around a broken groom?

He drew his brother to the wound
and bid him touch the heart.
See, Father, we are wounded, too:
Let Christ dwell in our scars.

“The incredulity of Thomas” from an English manuscript, c. 1504 By Unknown author – This image is available from the National Library of WalesYou can view this image in its original context on the NLW Catalogue, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44920993

Broken

Now a week later his disciples were again inside
and Thomas was with them.
Jesus came, although the doors were locked,
and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.”
Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands,
and bring your hand and put it into my side,
and do not be unbelieving, but believe.”
Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
John 20:19-31

We know you in the broken bread,
the wounds in hands and feet,
as one who comes here from the dead:
This is the Christ we meet.

You come to us transformed by pain:
God's only Son is marked
and bearing now the sign of Cain,
revealing God's own heart.

From timelessness you entered time;
you took our blood and breath
to bring us into life divine—
but, oh, that road is death.

We know you by the way you took;
your body is the map.
Now through the sundered veil we look
across the mortal gap.

For you have bid us peer inside 
the wounds in hands and feet.
New mercies open to our eyes,
deep calling out to deep.

And Cain, whose offering was refused,
is comforted at last,
the wheat he gave is finally used
to break the ancient fast.

For Abel has forgiven all,
whose blood spoke from the ground.
Through it we hear the Shepherd call
and know that we are found.

“The incredulity of Thomas” from an English manuscript, c.1504 By Unknown author – This image is available from the National Library of WalesYou can view this image in its original context on the NLW Catalogue, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44920993

We Looked For You Among the Dead

Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve,
was not with them when Jesus came.
So the other disciples said to 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 into the nailmarks
and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
Now a week later his disciples were again inside
and Thomas was with them.
Jesus came, although the doors were locked,
and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.”
Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands,
and bring your hand and put it into my side,
and do not be unbelieving, but believe.”
Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me?
Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”
John 20:19-31

We looked for you among the dead,
for we had seen your awful wounds.
You coem to us alive instead,
through still-locked doors in hidden rooms.

For you had learned to pass through walls,
through fear and pain, through hell itself.
You opened ways to pass through all;
with open wounds you pass through death.

We could not roll away the stone
that sealed you lifeless in the grave,
but you have passed on ways unknown 
through stone and door to come and save.

And though we hide from all in fear
and go alive to early tombs,
O risen Lord, still you draw near
to breathe your peace in upper rooms.

Inviting, then, you bid us touch
the open ways in hands and side,
to follow you through death and love
on pathways you have opened wide.

You meet us here in living flesh,
and we will meet what you went through.
Come with us yet through life and death,
and may our wounds lead us to you.

From an Armenian Gospels manuscript dated 1609, held by the Bodleian Library By Unknown author – The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42696250

Thomas

I would not know you, Lord, without your wounds.
If you had risen with your skin made new,
without the marks of all that you went through,
you would not be the teacher that I knew.

And will you let me touch your hands and side,
the holes where nails were driven as you cried,
the place the spearpoint opened you up wide?
And does it hurt, remembering how you died?

I have my own wounds, weeping here with yours;
I have my pain, a lifetime full of scars.
And now I see you stand here, bruised and sore--
Oh, touch my wounds, for they were always ours.

Oh, touch my wounds, as you let me touch yours.
Be with me in my pain forevermore.
And when you come again, have mercy, Lord,
on me and all the weary, wounded world.