Allowing others to touch our wounds

 The Easter season allows us to be open to surprises of being touched by Jesus. There is awareness during Lent that we become attached to certain behaviors, thoughts, or ways of living which do not fill our deepest need to encounter meaning at the heart of our lives. This is evident in how we seem to notice our own shortcuts and diversions which promise much but deliver little. The encounter with our own vulnerability and addiction to certain patterns of behavior can frustrate our hopes. We want to overcome our sin but our own efforts only seem to entrench those patterns within our life. click

In the Upper Room, we see this drama played out in the encounter between Jesus and Thomas. He emphasizes two things the first is the need to be at peace the second is to encounter a God of mercy who forgives. The need for peace is not just discovering a place of silence alone but rather allowing ourselves to listen more deeply to the desires which mill around our heads and hearts. This is probably our most private place but it is the place where we find out what is most important to us. For Thomas, it is the desire to believe to encounter the Risen Jesus. Yet something holds him back from the actual physical encounter. It seems to be okay in his own mind but is limited by how he puts this into practical action. His greatest fear is that if he encounters the wounds of Jesus his own wounds will be exposed. The doubt, the uncertainty, the longing for Jesus to be alive. There is a difference between what he thinks should happen and what actually does happen. 

This is the journey of Easter where Jesus meets us in our own uncertainty and tentativeness. He takes even the initial questions of faith and makes them real. This encounter surprises us with its vulnerability and honesty. This is ultimately how Jesus meets us. Not when we have it all together but more probably when we seem to be falling apart. When we are raw and candid about what we need. Jesus meets us in our own Upper Room. In the place where we have locked ourselves up for fear of the outside world with all its unanswered questions. He meets us to live the question which is most important to us today. In this he allows us to touch his wounds that he may touch our own.