Eastertide #14:

I am wounded by love.

(Song of Song 2:5)

You would think Easter Morning would remove the wounds of the Crucifixion; but the scares remain: nail scared hands and feet and a fifth scare where a spear pierced his side. As the riddle goes: “What are the five man made things we will see in heaven?”

Our resurrected Lord makes a point of it: “Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself” (Lk 24:39). It is the Crucified One who God has raised form the grave. Christ is raised as our Crucified Savior “making peace through the blood of his cross” (Col 1:19-20). Or, as John preaches: “God loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1Jn 2:2). Easter is what makes the wounds of Friday Good. On the Cross, out of God’s love, God is working out what has to be worked out to make for peace.