WHY DID JESUS KEEP THOSE SCARS FROM HIS CRUCIFIXION - John 20:27-29 Luke 24: 39-43

GOD will never let death win.  Jesus could have had any resurrected body He wanted  -  when He rose from the dead. 

Instead He purposely chose one that is identifiable easily by scars  -  one that can be seen and touched.  Why?

 

I mentioned these scars when I preached the Easter message ..   at Wesley Methodist Church, Segamat, Johor, Malaysia during my 4 day sessions there. 

Worshipper Dr Ling, a medical doctor, understood and could see the added dimensions of those scars of Jesus relating to the Easter message.
 
Those scars relate to Jesus Crucified.  His flesh  -  the Manhood of God ..  bears "evidences" of the Crucifixion.   And those scars are permanent reminders of His earthly days of confinement and suffering.  This gives the added dimension and significance to Easter.  

Easter can only be  -  because of Good Friday.

Interpreter's Bible Commentary says that Christ offers these scars as  visible and tangible proofs of the corporeal reality of His Resurrection.  "Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as yesee me have.  And when he had thus spoken, he showed them his hands and his feet."   (Luke 24:39-40).

There were many scars  -  before and after Jesus'..   We honor them;  but we worship Jesus.

History of the Crucifixion

Cicero  -  Roman orator and statesman -  pointed out that the  Crucifixion was the most cruellest and most hideous form of  capital punishment. Crucifixion was so tragically common in ancient times  .. Hundreds ...  thousands were crucified on one single occasion.  Just to mention two - 

         

Alexander the Great  -  after the siege of Tyre  crucified two thousand Tyrhians. 

 

In Titus final campaign  in which the Jews were annihilated ... and the Temple destroyed  - it was said that he crucified so many men that  there was no space left for crosses  -   and no crosses for the bodies. (Josephus, Wars of the Jews).

Not only was it the common custom for executing criminals .. it was also widespread  -  practiced in Egypt, Phoenecia,  Carthage, Persia, Assyria, Scythia and even India  -  not forgetting Greece and Rome.  The Romans took it over from the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians.

Methods of Crucifixion

Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible throws dramatic  new light on the methods of crucifixion in antiquity.

Conclusion: Scars are life's reminders.....

Wonder of wonders  scars can never completely go away. My right knee still carries the scars sustained when I was dragged ..in a motor accident when I was a student in my teens;  I'm 84 now. 

 

Because of Easter, we can hope that  the tears we shed  -  the blows

we receive  -  the emotional heartaches we suffer ....will become memories  -  just like the Scars of Jesus for Him  ...  as they are of us.

Scars are  Life's Reminders that Hope is standing by.    One day... a church minister asks ..  when  preaching "What work of man will there be in heaven..,?"  Someone replied,  "None. Only the Prints of the Nails on the Hands and Feet of Jesus."

There's Hope  -  then and now  ..  and always.  We will have re-created bodies  -   a re-created heaven and earth.  We will have an

Easter Beginning.

There is another way to look at those SCARS.  Christmas comes out of a stable.  Christ comes out of a disreputable little village, Nazareth.

Rome died  -  passed over.  Twenty centuries of Christianity passed on  -  out of a Crucified and Scarred Body of the Risen Christ.

And His Disciples saw Him  -  yet once again.  And this time...  Jesus showed them  His SCARS  - they stood up to be counted......

  

  God Bless All...

  Pastor Edwin Khoo