'in the days of His flesh'

by Laura Roberts

In this liturgical space between Easter and Pentecost, I have been returning again and again to wonder at the almost brazen bodiliness of the resurrected Jesus, a trait remarked upon repeatedly throughout the New Testament. In reading the Epistle to the Hebrews, in but one example, we find the author reflecting on this embodiment by writing about the pains Christ underwent ‘in the days of His flesh.’ Likewise, John’s Gospel reminded us in the Sunday lectionary a few weeks ago of the famous episode of ‘doubting Thomas,’ in which the apostle Thomas, upon seeing the marks in Christ’s hands and side, finds himself unable to resist the miracle of the Resurrection any longer and proclaims in awe and amazement, ‘my Lord and my God!’. This Eastertide, like Thomas, I have found myself mentally tracing the shape of Christ’s wounds and reflecting, what does it mean that He still bears the marks of nail and lance, even in the Resurrection?

For me, these reflections on Jesus’ embodiment have been quite different from the kind we celebrate at Christmas in the context of the Incarnation. It is one thing, a good and beautiful thing to be sure, to see God in the tenderness of a newborn child, and yet I have found it is another thing entirely, a thing more sublime and yet still so beautiful, to see God in the shape of a wounded, resurrected body. I suppose it is possible (though I am absolutely unsure of the rules of play in this case) that Christ could have stepped from the tomb unblemished, with less than the whisper of a scar in the places where He had been pierced. Yet the fact of the persistence of Christ’s wounds gives me an abiding sense of peace and assurance, not only in the physical truth of the Resurrection but also in the unboundedness of divine love and solidarity represented by the whole of Christ’s life with us.

Why is it that Christ keeps the marks of His wounds, even after the tomb has been found empty? What, ultimately, does it mean? Certainly, their presence helped convince His disciples that the man they kept encountering was truly their Lord. Perhaps their significance also suggests a hope that God might once and for all sanctify all our human vulnerabilities in a way that will be far more glorious than their mere erasure. In the last estimate, any answer we could give falls short, just like anything final we try to say about God. And yet, there is so much beauty and comfort to be found in thinking that the One who sits at the right hand of the throne of heaven Himself has hands that still bear the pain and love he felt during the days of His flesh.

Marie Howe, ‘Easter’

Two of the fingers on his right hand

Had been broken

So when he poured back into that hand it surprised

Him – it hurt him at first.

And the whole body was too small. Imagine

The sky trying to fit into a tunnel carved into a hill.

He came into it two ways:

From the outside, as we step into a pair of pants.