Hope for the Wounded
Wednesday, April 8, 2026
Womanist theologian Yolanda Pierce reminds us that the resurrection and its promise of new life doesn’t erase the pain of what has been lost:
You cannot read the stories of the resurrected Jesus as accounts of life triumphing over death without contending with layers of grief, mourning, and pain. A beloved mother has lost her first-born child; students and disciples are grieving the death of a teacher, confidant, and friend. Everyone has borne witness to the excruciating pain of the cross, the consequences of daring to defy empire, and the cost of declaring Jesus as Messiah. Some believers go into hiding, and others are confused about who they should now follow.
In the chaos of this time, the risen Savior shows up again, and again, and again—not as a ghostly, ethereal being but as wounded flesh. “Look at my hands and my feet,” he says to some of the frightened folks to whom he appears. “It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have” (Luke 24:39)….
How do we understand God-in-flesh, broken and vulnerable, and yet also resurrected and triumphant? How do we, like [doubting] Thomas, make meaning of Jesus with his still visible wounds? To Thomas, Jesus speaks the words, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side” (John 20:27)….
There is an intimacy to Jesus’s command to Thomas, a closeness that we cannot overlook. Christ invites him to touch the unhealed wounds—to feel the places where nails and spear had pierced his body. It is a proclamation that the physical body still matters…. Wounds, too, are a part of the divine story.
By sharing his wounds, Jesus reveals that our wounds are places for God’s healing presence and love:
This is a theology for the wounded, for those who are still healing, and even for those who aren’t quite ready for healing. The risen Savior insistently welcomes the doubting, the uncertain, and the grieving to touch and see that he is real and present and here with us. The risen Savior, who had been abandoned, denied, betrayed, and crucified, doesn’t hide his wounds or rush their healing. As wounded people encased in the frailties of human flesh, can we, too, summon enough grace and kindness to acknowledge that our own very human wounds need time to heal?…
This is an embodied theology. In these stories, the physical body and the tangible world are consistently presented as ways of intimately knowing God. Some saw and believed; others have not seen and still believed. At the center of both experiences is God-in-flesh, loving us in our own wounded places.
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| APR 7, 2026 Right-ness. Skye Jethani |
 Amid a stunning array of beliefs, religions, philosophies, and cultures, there are two things that all people agree on. First, this world is not what it ought to be. Second, we do not behave as we ought. Both the Hindu and the humanist will lament when an earthquake razes a village or a disease kills a child. Likewise, both the believer and the atheist can agree that the powerful should not abuse the weak and the rich should not cheat the poor.An inherent sense of ought–ness is universal in our species. As C.S. Lewis observed, “Whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real Right and Wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later. He may break his promise to you, but if you try breaking one to him he will be complaining ‘It’s not fair’ before you can say Jack Robinson.”While the particulars of what constitutes right and wrong vary somewhat across cultures, the existence of the categories “right” and “wrong” does not. We have yet to discover a society that is truly and consistently relativistic in its morality, where right and wrong are defined by each individual and never imposed upon another. This is because such a society cannot endure. To be a society, people must agree upon a sense of order—they must share a framework for how the world ought to be and uphold it when it is violated. Anything less is not a culture; it’s chaos. Modern American culture speaks a lot about “justice,” but the common biblical word for this universal instinct is “righteousness.” We often focus on the word’s spiritual or moral dimensions, but righteousness simply means “rightly ordered relationships.” A righteous person, for example, fulfills all their relational obligations in a way that allows everyone within their network to flourish. Of course, this also applies to a properly ordered relationship between God and his people. Violating this relationship makes one “unrighteous,” while keeping the covenant with God results in a declaration of one’s “righteousness. ”Whether it is the shout for justice by a protestor or the call to live in union with God by a preacher, Jesus affirms this longing for righteousness. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” He equates the soul’s desire for justice with the unrelenting physical desire for food and water. It is an inescapable aspect of our human condition, and he promises that it will be quenched. We can be assured that in time God will put everything back into its proper order so that all he has made will flourish. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” DAILY SCRIPTURE MATTHEW 5:3–12 LUKE 18:1–8 WEEKLY PRAYER. From the Liturgy of St. Basil (329 -379) Remember, O Lord, those who are poor and in need, the widows, the orphans, the strangers, those in captivity and those in exile, the sick and the suffering. Remember, O Lord, those who love us and those who hate us; those who have asked us to pray for them, and those whom we have not remembered through ignorance. Remember all Your people, O Lord, and pour out Your rich mercy upon all. Amen. |
Group Discussion — choose one:
What does it mean to you that the risen Jesus still carries his wounds? Does that comfort you, disturb you, or both?
Jethani defines righteousness as “rightly ordered relationships.” Which relationship in your life feels most out of order right now — and what would it look like if it were made right?
Both readings suggest God meets us in the broken, longing places rather than past them. Where have you experienced that — and where do you find it hardest to believe?
