2 minute read
Day Four
Day Four // February 20 // Perfectly Wounded
“Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish; Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal.” – Sir Thomas Moore –
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Ours scars tell a story. On my foot, there’s a tender patch that betrays the time I stepped on a broken bottle. On my knee, proof of a biking mishap. On my hands and arm and eye, little reminders of pains long past.
Our scars tell a story. And so do Jesus’. His head, wounded by thorns. His hands and feet, pierced by nails. His sacred side, the target of a Roman spear. And He did it all for us. He endured it so that we might know the love of God, so that we might see the lengths to which Heaven would go (and still goes) to redeem the earth. He chose to suffer in His body so that ours might be healed – healed from the sin-sickness that comes from being human.
20 PERFECTLY WOUNDED
His scars tell a story: one that, through this holy season, we hope to tell. For in each of His wounds, there’s a lesson, a charge, a deeper significance. His wounded head: a call to sacrifice the way we think – all our mental and intellectual snobbery. His wounded hands: a call to surrender our abilities and strengths. His wounded side: a call to yield our communal and social aspirations. His wounded feet: a call to transform our personal and professional mobility – all the places we choose to go and all the things we choose to do.
As the Prophet Isaiah (and, later, Peter) would declare, “By his scars, we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5, 1 Peter 2:24). But, in order to be healed, we must come to the Healer. We must humble ourselves and confess our need, our brokenness, our pain, our sin. We must confess that we have broken God’s will and that we’ve broken His heart, that His scars bear our names. For in that moment of piercing-but-blessed honesty, we find the ecstasy of freedom – healing in mind and body and soul. In that moment, our scars start to tell a different story: not of the pain once felt, but of the healing forever known.
WEEK TWO:
The Mind of Christ
“Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”
– Philippians 4:8 –
