Jesus’ entire journey told people two major things: that life could have a positive story line, and that God was far different and far better than we ever thought. He did not just give us textbook answers from a distance, but personally walked through the process of being both rejected and forgiving, and then said, “Follow me.”
The significance of Jesus’ wounded body is his deliberate and conscious holding of the pain of the world and refusing to send it elsewhere. The wounds were not necessary to convince God that we were lovable; the wounds are to convince us of the path and the price of transformation. They are what will happen to you if you face and hold sin in compassion instead of projecting it in hatred.
Jesus’ wounded body is an icon for what we are all doing to one another and to the world. Jesus’ resurrected body is an icon of God’s response to our crucifixions. The two images contain the whole message of the Gospel.
A naked, bleeding, wounded, crucified man is the most unlikely image for God, a most illogical image for Omnipotence (which is most peoples’ natural image of God). Apparently, we have got God all wrong! Jesus is revealing a very central problem for religion, by coming into the world in this most unexpected and even unwanted way. The cross of Jesus was a mirror held up to history, so we could utterly change our normal image of God.
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Dancing Standing Still: Healing the World from a Place of Prayer, p. 73, 76-8
A Coherent Pattern
The full biblical revelation has given us the history within the history, the coherence inside of the seeming incoherence. The clear goal and direction is mutual indwelling, where “the mystery is Christ within you, your hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). In this mutual indwelling you no longer live as just you, but you live in a larger force field called the body of Christ (Galatians 2:20). As Charles Williams said, the “master idea” of Christianity is co-inherence. But it takes a long time to allow, believe, trust, and enjoy such wonder. Only in the final chapter of the Bible can scripture say, “Now God lives among humans, they have become God’s people, and he has become their God” (Revelation 21:3).
Remember the story of the four-year old who spoke to his newborn brother: “Quick, tell me who made you! Where’d you come from? I’m beginning to forget.” In the complexity of life’s journeys we all begin to forget. As we get older, the patterns become too complex for most people if they totally try to fit it into human logic and eventually they don’t even expect any patterns. As a result, we are facing today a deep crisis of meaning, which has become a crisis of hope, and an empty frenetic scramble for external power, perks, and possessions. It will never work. Meaning always comes from within.
In a sense, the Christ is always too much for us. He’s always “going ahead of us into Galilee” (Matthew 28:7). The Risen Christ is leading us into a future for which we’re never ready for or can even imagine. Only little by little do we become capable of mutuality, of communion, of pure presence. Start with stones, move to plants and trees, return the humble gaze of animals, love your neighbor as yourself, then you will be ready to “entertain angels” (Hebrews 13:2), and finally you will be ready for God—probably not before.
~Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality
