As you might have guessed, I have taken my title from the hymn, “Crown Him with Many Crowns.”  It’s part of the line, “Crown him with many crowns / Behold his hands and side / Rich wounds, yet visible above / In beauty glorified.”  That hymn isn’t usually sung on Easter, but there’s no law saying we can’t!

We’ll get to those rich wounds in a moment.

Our celebration of Easter this year is somewhat muted.  For many it is a great deal muted.  I’ve heard of some churches who plan to wait on celebrating Easter until they can return to their sanctuaries.  I suppose I would remind us that every Sunday, being the Lord’s Day, is a “little Easter.”  There are Christians all over the world who don’t have the luxury of a building on any Sunday.  My guess is they are celebrating the resurrection of our Lord today.

[He Qi, "Easter Morning"]

And unfortunately, there are still some churches who are doing business as usual.  Of course, if they keep doing that, my prediction is they will very soon not be doing any business at all!

Having said all that, I am well aware of how we, and the rest of the human race, are exploring uncharted territory, to use a considerable understatement.

And sadly, the coronavirus has struck our church family.

If the planet Earth itself was ever in need of resurrection, this is the time.

Jesus is risen from the dead.  Matthew tells us, “After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb” (28:1).  They were in for the surprise of their lives.

There is the utter disbelief of his friends, not to mention his enemies.  Seriously, it was just too insane.  Still, the women were quicker to accept it than the men were.  In his version, Luke tells us the men’s reaction to the women’s report.  “But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them” (24:11).

I don’t know about you, but I for one am glad that men disbelieving women is a thing of the past!

To quickly summarize Matthew 28: the women find the stone blocking the tomb has been rolled away.  The guards are quaking in their boots.  An angel tells the women to go and report what they saw, but on the way, Jesus appears to them.  When the priests hear the story, they engineer a coverup.  The disciples go to Galilee and meet the risen Jesus.  He gives them what has come to be known as the Great Commission.

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.  And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (vv. 18-20).

A scripture passage often used for funerals is 1 Corinthians 15, Paul’s chapter on the resurrection.  A question that gets him started is this: “Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead?” (v. 12).  Later he deals with the questions, “How are the dead raised?  With what kind of body do they come?” (v. 35).

How do we describe the resurrection body?  Paul says that “this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality” (v. 53).  I’ll be honest: that really doesn’t help me much!  I have trouble envisioning what that looks like.

Someone who could probably identify with that is Thomas, the so-called “doubting Thomas.”  He wasn’t there when the risen Jesus appeared to his friends.  They say he showed them his hands and side—the hands and side pierced with nail and spear.  He doesn’t believe them, but a week later he does.  Jesus again appears to them, and he shows Thomas that he is real.

Through the ages, people have painted Thomas, not so much as a bad guy, but one who needs a major faith adjustment!  Is it possible that the idea of a resurrected body (as difficult as that is to swallow) still bearing wounds is even more of a stretch?  Here’s where we return to that “rich wounds, yet visible above” business.

The resurrection body of Jesus, who defeated death and the grave, still has scars!  I find that remarkable.  At first thought, we might expect his body, risen from the dead, to be in immaculate condition.  Does God do things by half-measures?  Why not have complete healing?

Perhaps the resurrection body of Jesus models what it means to be scarred.  Maybe it was a way of showing the disciples that it really was him.  They weren’t encountering a ghost; they weren’t having a vision.  So his wounds were a method of identification.

But surely it was much more than that.  In fact, the scriptures give testimony to that.  In 1 Peter 2, we are told, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed” (v. 24).  By his wounds you have been healed.  Jesus heals by taking on our infirmity.

Back to the idea of an immaculate, a flawless body—God not employing half-measures.  What better way to identify with we humans, to be plunged into human flesh, than to honor it?  Jesus, more than anyone else, understood what it meant to be “the man of sorrows.”  By retaining the scars, Jesus honors the depth of what it means to be human.  After all, he was human!

There has been much discussion about getting back to normal (post pandemic) and how long it will take before it happens.  I don’t believe it will ever happen.  If we somehow pretend to go back to the way things were, we’ll be fooling ourselves.  These events are happening; there’s nothing we can do to change it.  The question will be if we learn from this—if we allow the Spirit to teach us.

Maybe you’ve seen images from around the world what the reduced use of pollution-causing activities has done.  I saw a report on how, in northern India, the reduction of pollution has enabled residents to see the Himalayas, 200 kilometers away (about 125 miles).[1]  Someone commented, “We can see the snow-covered mountains clearly from our roofs.  And not just that, stars are visible at night.  I have never seen anything like this in recent times.”

And it’s only taken a worldwide disaster to get it done!

Shelly Rambo, who teaches at Boston University School of Theology, has written extensively on trauma.  Something she says about trauma is that it marks “a ‘new normal’ in that there is no possibility of the person returning to who they were before.  A radical break has occurred between the old self and the new one.”[2]  The challenge for one who’s undergone trauma is how to “[integrate] the experience into their life.”  That’s true for us all.  That’s true for us as the church.

We see many reactions to this unwelcome viral visitor, just as we do with other calamities.  One of the most common is one I think we all have had, in one way or another.  We believe God has sent the disease or the storm or the accident or whatever.  Is it God’s will?  Is it a test?  Is it a punishment?  Is it a cruel cosmic joke?

(For what it’s worth, I don’t believe any of those things.  However, I do believe we can choose to believe those things.)

Regardless of what we believe, perhaps the more important point is asking how that belief affects us.  How does it affect our behavior?  How does it affect our faith?  Rambo says we can see Jesus’ wounds as “not only as marks of death but as ways of marking life forward.”

Our scars do not define us.  We all bear scars, be they visible or invisible.

Yes, the scars can be visible.  They might be scars from accidents or surgery.  Maybe we’ve been harmed by others.  Maybe we have harmed ourselves.

And yes, the scars can be invisible.  They might be the result of a constant drumbeat of insults, of ridicule.  Maybe we’ve been rejected because of the way we were born.  Scars can be left—left because of self-deprecation, self-doubt, self-hatred.

But that takes us back to the glorious nature of this day.  Rich wounds, yet visible above—in all the ways “above” can mean.  In beauty glorified.  Jesus Christ looks at us, and he sees in our wounds something beautiful.  Our scars are beautiful.

[Even this guy’s scars are beautiful?]

The good news of this Resurrection Day is that the Holy Spirit empowers us as we mark our life forward.  We testify today we as the body of Christ, though wounded we may be, are empowered to say the devil, the grave, that which would harm us, does not have the last word.  Our risen Lord journeys with us as we declare with a holy boldness:

“Death has been swallowed up in victory.  Where, O death, is your victory?  Where, O death, is your sting?”

“But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Co 15:54-55, 57).

[1] www.sbs.com.au/language/english/audio/himalayas-visible-for-first-time-in-30-years-as-pollution-levels-in-india-drop

[2] www.christiancentury.org/article/critical-essay/how-christian-theology-and-practice-are-being-shaped-trauma-studies

The gospel according to St. Luke has one of the most beloved parables of Jesus, the Prodigal Son. The story of this prodigal (that is, “wasteful”) son is like a treasure chest, filled with precious gemstones. So many valuable nuggets can be found within it.

In the year 2000, my wife Banu and I moved to New York. The first church we served in this state was in Jamestown. One year when we were there, the congregation had a Lenten series in which people from various faiths and philosophies were invited to come and share their stories with us. (One of our parishioners invited her Tai Chi instructor.)

We had one session with a teacher who shared his experience as a Muslim. It was a wide-ranging conversation, covering many topics. One that came up was the matter of grace. He asked me what we meant by it. I took a lesson from Jesus, who in the scriptures tends to tell stories rather than give textbook answers. So in brief detail, I talked about the prodigal son. I said the father is the picture of grace.

In Luke 15, some Pharisees and scribes are upset because Jesus is being friendly with undesirables, those who according to the religious and social standards are considered unclean. Apparently Jesus thinks these Pharisees and scribes need a refresher course on grace, because that’s what they get. Maybe I’m mistaken, but my guess would be we all need a refresher course on grace.

As I just said, Jesus loves to tell stories. He responds with stories of lostness: a lost sheep, a lost coin, and finally, a lost son.

He introduces the third one by saying, “There was a man who had two sons” (v. 11). The younger son presents his father with a blunt request. He wants his portion of the inheritance. And he wants it right now! Many have commented on how outrageous a request this is. As things turn out for the young man, things really do get outrageous.

Barbara Brown Taylor speaks of a ritual in the Talmud called the qetsatsah ceremony. It’s designed “to punish a Jewish boy who loses the family inheritance to Gentiles. Here’s how it works. If he ever shows up in his village again, then the villagers can fill a large earthenware jug with burned nuts and corn, break it in front of the prodigal, and shout his name out loud, pronouncing him cut off from his people.” He’s disgracefully driven out, shamefully sent away.

Having said all that, the father still agrees “to [divide] his property between them” (v. 12). And within a few days, the son takes his massive amount of spending money, and as the scripture says, “traveled to a distant country” (v.13). This is the road trip of a lifetime. He wants to get as far away as possible. He’s young, rich, and ready to party!

Unfortunately, our boy is not paying attention to his spending. The Bible says he squanders his property in dissolute, reckless living. And adding insult to injury, the place gets hit with famine.

Desperate, the young man agrees to work for a pig farmer. Feeding swine, not the most sought-after position, is truly an abomination for a Jew. And with the crappy paycheck, he can’t even afford to eat. His gnawing hunger makes the pods he feeds the animals look pretty tasty. He literally wants to “pig out.”

Eventually, he gets tired of this hogwash and realizes something. “How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger!” (v. 17). And he rehearses what he’ll say: he’ll admit his guilt and beg to be taken on as a worker. So off he goes.

At this point, I want to inject a thought. Remember, Jesus isn’t simply telling a fascinating story. He wants his hearers to see themselves in what he’s saying. I invite all of us to do the same. Think of ways in which we’ve been the younger son. (Or imagine yourself as a prodigal daughter.) Think of blessings we’ve squandered, craving the food of swine.

With verse 20, the tone changes. The focus shifts from the younger son to the father. He’s really the glue that holds this entire story together. In describing the father, Jesus paints a picture totally at odds with what his culture would expect. At the first glimpse of the returning prodigal son, the father immediately sprints toward him and embraces him.

In ancient times, no self-respecting man would run like that, “like a girl, like a mother instead of a father.” Aristotle reportedly said, “Great men never run in public.” The father doesn’t care about social convention.

The younger son launches into his speech, confessing his sin and admitting that he no longer deserves to be considered a son. But before he can beg for a job, his father interrupts and says, “Let’s get you dressed up in style. Slay the fatted calf! It’s time to really party!”

At verse 25, we come to the second major section of the parable. This is where the elder son enters the picture. If the younger son represents irresponsibility and wastefulness, then the elder son symbolizes responsibility and duty. While the younger son was off playing, he was making sure things got done. While the prodigal was nowhere to be found, he was the good son, the model son. And while he’s out in the field—wouldn’t you know it?—singing and dancing are going on!

When a slave tells him the reason for the party, let’s say he is not pleased. He refuses to go back to the house. This prompts the father to go out to him and plead. It’s at this point that the elder son unleashes the flood of anger and resentment and pain that has welled up within him.

For years, I’ve worked like a slave for you, “and I have never disobeyed your command” (v. 29). He feels like a glorified servant. And to what thanks? You’ve never even given me a stupid goat so I can feast with my friends. “But when this son of yours came back, who devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!” (v. 30).

Notice that the older son refers to his wayward sibling as “this son of yours,” not “my brother.” His heart has become hardened. The older brother needs to undergo conversion as much as the younger one. But with him, it isn’t so obvious. He hasn’t lived a wild life; he’s always done the right thing. But like everyone who makes sure that they do the right thing, his sin is on the inside. It is more subtle.

And the father understands that. He also understands the pain of his son, the son who stayed at home, rather than going off and sowing wild oats. He feels his pain! The father responds in verse 31 begins with the word teknon, translated in the NRSV as “son,” but it has the more intimate meaning of “child.”

He appeals to his embittered offspring: child, my son, “you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found” (vv. 31-32).

Celebrating his return is by no means a matter of repayment. You’re right—he doesn’t deserve anything. And I’d be justified in casting him out. No, celebrating your brother’s return isn’t a matter of repayment—it’s not a matter of justice; it’s a matter of grace.

One of the most beloved spiritual figures of the twentieth century was Henri Nouwen. Of his many books, the one he considered to be his favorite was The Return of the Prodigal Son.

Published in 1992, four years before his death, it tells how Rembrandt’s painting of the same name sent him on a journey that shaped the rest of his life. In fact, he was on his way to Russia in 1996 to do a TV documentary on the painting when, during a stop in the Netherlands, he died from a heart attack.

In the book he makes the painful confession that he sees too much of the elder brother in himself. “It is strange to say this,” he says, “but, deep in my heart, I have known the feeling of envy toward the wayward son. It is the emotion that arises when I see my friends having a good time doing all sorts of things that I condemn. I called their behavior reprehensible or even immoral, but at the same time I often wondered why I didn’t have the nerve to do some of it or all of it myself.” (70)

Nouwen identifies with the elder brother’s sense of loneliness—the bitter and terrible loneliness of resentment that prevents joy. (And instead of the chest tightening up, the ability to take a deep breath!)

He admits, “Often I catch myself complaining about little rejections, little impolitenesses, little negligences… As I let myself be drawn into the vast interior labyrinth of my complaints, I become more and more lost until, in the end, I feel myself to be the most misunderstood, rejected, neglected, and despised person in the world.” (72)

I wonder, haven’t we all felt that way at one time or another? For Nouwen, his deliverance came in the knowledge that he had to move from being either of the sons to being the father, the one who extends grace.

Part of the artistry of this parable is that it’s incomplete. We don’t know the ending. Is the elder son able to overcome his hurt and anger and join the festivities? Are the two brothers ever reconciled? Those questions remain unanswered.

But we have a say in how the story unfolds. When we see in ourselves the wastefulness of the younger and the resentment of the older, we can remember that this is the gospel. This is the good news: that there is one who gives his life to us so that we may be reconciled. The good news is that God is prodigal: wasteful in generosity, wasteful in hospitality. The final paragraph of Henri Nouwen’s book contains the joy of that discovery:

“When, four years ago, I went to Saint Petersburg to see Rembrandt’s “The Return of the Prodigal Son,” I had little idea how much I would have to live what I then saw. I stand with awe at the place where Rembrandt brought me. He led me from the kneeling, disheveled young son to the standing, bent-over old father, from the place of being blessed to the place of blessing. As I look at my own aging hands, I know that they have been given to me to stretch out toward all who suffer, to rest upon the shoulders of all who come, and to offer the blessing that emerges from the immensity of God’s love.” (139)

That is the gospel, the good news. We receive prodigal, wasteful grace, and we are called to share that freely.

[from top to bottom, the images are “Prodigal Son” by He Qi, “The Prodigal Son Among Swine” by Max Beckmann, and “The Return of the Prodigal Son” by Rembrandt]