Closed Doors, Open Wounds
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April 19, 2020Today’s gospel speaks to us of closed doors and open wounds.
“Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and stood in their midst.” (Jn 20:26)
Fear is a big theme in the resurrection gospels. And fear means closed doors.
In Mark, the women flee from the tomb in terror, unable to speak of what they have seen. In Matthew, Jesus greets them and they embrace his feet. In Luke, no one is quick to believe until Jesus shows them his hands and his feet and eats with them. In John, he shows his hands and his side, and goes further for Thomas, whose holy curiosity asks for more:
“Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt, but believe.” (Jn 20:27)
Why does Jesus show the disciples his wounds? To prove that he is the same one who was crucified and laid in the tomb – that he is truly risen: not a ghost or a zombie or a figment of imagination and wishful thinking. He wants them to know him as the one who walked with them along the byways of Galilee and Judea. He wants them to recognize him as their teacher and master, who ate with them and washed their feet. He wants them to see that he went freely and for some reason to the suffering and death that seemed like disaster, but wasn’t. And now he is here before them, walking through closed doors, yes, but living, breathing, eating, inviting their touch. And his wounds remain.
For those of us who have not seen and yet have believed, the wounds speak yet more. In the words of St Bernard:
“But the nail (clavis) that pierced him has become for me a key (clavus) unlocking the sight of the Lord’s will. Why should I not gaze through the cleft? The nail cries out, the wound cries out that God is in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. ‘The iron pierced his soul’ and his heart has drawn near, so that he is no longer one who cannot sympathize with my weaknesses. The secret of his heart is laid open through the clefts of his body; that mighty mystery of loving is laid open, laid open too the tender mercies of our God, in which the morning sun from on high has risen upon us. Surely his heart is laid open through his wounds!”
(St Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Song of Songs 61.4-5)
The doors are locked, but Jesus’ hands and feet and side are offered as keyholes that a door may be opened into God.
We may well ask whether this wound (or any wound) is just a violent sacrilege rebranded as a locus of mystical encounter. In other words: do we romanticize the cross at the risk of trivializing the suffering of our brothers and sisters? The tragic circumstances of our world force us into a corner and demand that we relinquish our easy platitudes, our superficial devotions. Such circumstances also serve to reveal the true depths of our faith, the full extent to which God’s love has brought him into solidarity with us. I believe St Bernard, for all his imaginative flights, was very deeply in touch with the human condition and no stranger to his own wounds and those of his people and time. His is not an armchair mysticism, content to enliven dreary days with a spiritual high that makes no demands, but the real thing. Like Thomas, Bernard is determined to pierce through raw reality in search of the Divine.
So, what is this feast about? St Thomas probes the wound and comes to believe that God in Christ has triumphed over death: “My Lord and my God.” St Bernard gazes into the wound and sees the depths of God’s mercy, his “mighty mystery of loving” made manifest in human flesh: the wounded and glorious flesh of the crucified and risen Lord. And we, what do we see in the wounds of Christ, offered to us today with a greeting of peace? What do we see in the wounds of our fellow human beings and of our world? Violent sacrilege? I dare say, yes. But this is never the last word. The word spoken by these wounds is mercy, and in this is found peace beyond understanding. Only the peace of knowing ourselves loved beyond measure can untie the knot of our fears. Only this peace can open a door to living what we have received, to live a new life, to live love and mercy.
“‘Peace be with you.’ When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.” (Jn 20:19-20)
As we sing the communion chant for the feast, I invite you to ponder it in its dual meaning. These are Jesus words to Thomas and to us:
“Mitte manum tuam, et cognosce loca clavorum.
Put your hand here and know the place of the nails.”
(Communion chant for Octave Day of Easter)
But are they not also our words to him on behalf of all the world: Jesus, you put your hand into the place of the nails, into the opening of our wound, and our inner being yearns for you. In this is our peace.
Image: "Into the Wound" © Jan Richardson janrichardson.com
