Crown
him the Lord of love! Behold His hands and side,
Rich
wounds, yet visible above, in beauty glorified;
no
angels in the sky can fully bear the sight,
but
downward bend their burning eyes at mysteries so bright.
---Matthew Bridges, 1851
There is a country song that includes the line, “…you
ain’t lived till you got scars.” I think
there is a lot of truth in the statement. My daughter Abby’s knee will always
show the scars of a childhood fall from the “high monkey bars” and a couple of inelegant adolescent stair descents.
Sarah’s forehead will always have a Harry Potter-esque ‘lightning
bolt’ mark to remind her of the hutch at
the bottom of the stairs at Grandma’s in Columbus. Any mom will tell of scars related
to birthing, then raising, children --- scars both physical and emotional. Life
takes its toll on us all.
And life took its toll on Jesus. When I read this hymn, I am struck by the thought
that the Jesus glorified in heaven, present with the angels, still bears the
scars of a real life. The kinds of scars we all carry--of injury and
discouragement, of betrayal and disappointment, of rejection and
indifference—if we walk the world long enough, earnestly enough. No
air-brushed, cleaned-up, sanitized version of Jesus reigns in heaven. The Lord
of love, mystery of mysteries, still bears the marks of his sacrifice on his
glorified body.
You ain’t lived till you got scars.
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