[Pentecost+25] the Resurrected Christ still bearing the wounds of Crucifixion

While they were talking about this, Jesus stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you."

They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost.

Jesus said to them, "Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have."

And having said this, Jesus showed them the wounded hands and feet.

While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, Jesus said to them, "Have you anything here to eat?"

They gave Jesus a piece of broiled fish, and Jesus took it and ate in their presence.

Luke 24:36-43 (NRSV, alt.)

For this second Sunday in our three-part series on disability and mental illness, Jeff chose to preach on one of the resurrection stories in which Jesus shows off the wounds of crucifixion as proof that, "Yes, it's really me."

We might not think much about this -- so used are we to the similar "doubting Thomas" story from John's Gospel. The talk of touching the wounds is more oblique here, so we might focus instead on the embodied aspect of eating in this story. But this question of whether resurrected bodies will be wounded comes up a lot when we imagine what our own bodies (or those of others) will be like in the resurrection.

Most people's idea of Heaven is that everything will be "better" -- an eternally happy, perfected existence; my best friend and I joke about Heaven where the "clouds never frown" (from the 19th-century hymn "In Heaven Above").

And our ideas of what "better" means are culturally conditioned. It seems obvious to many people, for example, that no one will be in a wheelchair -- that everyone will have two legs which function perfectly well. But what does "functioning perfectly well" mean? I have never trained for a marathon; will I wake up in Heaven with the ability to run a marathon? Will I struggle through that run, or will it be effortless? (I imagine that many runners would assert that feeling the effort exerted in one's body is, up to a point at least, an integral part of the experience.) What will the limits on our Heavenly bodies be? Will we all teleport around the vastness that is Heaven?

In her book Disability and Christian Theology: Embodied Limits and Constructive Possibilities, Deborah Beth Creamer proposes a "limits model" for understanding disability -- humans can't fly without assistance, and we don't frame that as a "disability" (nor do we refer to a passenger airplane as "assistive technology"), nor do we tend to frame a need for eyeglasses/contacts as a "disability" (ditto), but we do frame a need for a wheelchair as a "disability." So we may not expect to fly in Heaven (though maybe some of us do), or even think a lot about whether we'll still need glasses, but many of us may expect that no one will need a wheelchair or a guide dog or hearing aids. (By reminding us that we all have limits, Creamer's limits model points out the problematics of labeling specific points on the continuum of human experiences as inherently negative limits.)

Some would argue that the afterlife will be so radically different from this life that to speculate on these sorts of details is to miss the point -- and I don't necessarily think they're wrong. But I do think that what we imagine "an ideal world" (or "ideal bodies") to be is indicative of our values (and our assumptions) and is thus worth digging in to. What does it say that we imagine that people who in this life use wheelchairs (many of whom have never had use of their legs) will have their bodies radically altered in the afterlife rather than imagining that, for example, everything in Heaven will be accessible to a wheelchair user?

In his sermon, Jeff asked,

What would have happened if the disciples had said, "Show us your hands and your feet!" and there had been no holes there? I mean, it's not so unreasonable to imagine that they might NOT have been there. Going from dead to alive is some serious healing, so why not go from cut and punctured to whole again, as well?

What if Jesus' resurrection had also included a scar-free healing of all the wounds he carried with him in life? What if the disciple Thomas in the Gospel of John, who declared that he would not – that he could not – believe until he was able to touch the open wounds of Jesus had been unable to find any when Jesus invited him to inspect his body?

If Jesus' wounds had been healed up, disappeared, in the Resurrection, would the disciples have been able to believe that it was really Jesus?

Would the disappearing of the wounds diminish the magnitude of the Crucifixion? Is it important that we retain the marks of the experiences that have profoundly shaped us? Or does the work of healing sometimes mean we want to move on from those experiences, leaving all traces of them behind?

Does the wounded resurrected body have implications for what kinds of bodies (do not) need "fixing," or is it just a convenient device to "prove" to the astonished disciples that this really is the Jesus who was crucified?

What do you think, Beloved?

Are there other things this text brought up for you?

You're invited to continue the conversation in the comments. (As always, you're welcome to comment anonymously/pseudonymously if you prefer.)