So, how many scars do you have?  I was just thinking the other day of how each of my scars (I counted 14!) have a story to tell about my life. Some are from surgeries and others are from injuries.  For example, I have a scar on my forehead from when I was a toddler.  Our family had gone fishing and while there had a flat tire on our car (a ’36 Chevy, I believe it was). While my dad was changing the tire, he left the trunk lid open and I crawled in without his knowing it. Well he ended up shutting the lid on my head!  And then there is the scar on my left thumb. I was working for my brother-in-law (Kutz Builders) and cutting some trim for a countertop of a new house . I caught my thumb on the  tablesaw blade resulting in a blood streak up one wall and across the ceiling (both of which were freshly painted!). I could go on but I will spare you the gruesome details!   Suffice it to say that each scar is a reminder of an event in my life.  Chances are you have you own scars reminding you of the past.  

     With that in mind (my mind at least!), I can’t help thinking about one of our favorite recent Christian songs by Casting Crowns. It is entitled Scars in Heaven and speaks of the sorrow of losing a loved one but the comfort of knowing that all their “wounds have been erased.”  The chorus says: “The only scars in Heaven, they won’t belong to me and you. There’ll be no such thing as broken, and all the old will be made new. And the thought that makes me smile right now, even as the tears fall down,  is that the only scars in Heaven are on the hands that hold you now.” 

     Each of us incurs a number of scars in our sojourn here on this earth which is under the curse of sin.  And, many of those scars aren’t physically visible for they are emotional scars caused by being hurt by others or by suffering loss.  I think of the Apostle Paul’s list in one of his letters to the church at Corinth. He speaks of three times being beaten with rods, five times whipped with 39 lashes, and three times shipwrecked. But then he added, “Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure upon me of concern for all the churches” ( II Cor. 12:23-28). Paul also suffered some physical infirmity which he refers to as a “thorn in the flesh” (II Cor. 12:7-10).  In other letters, Paul speaks of how he was deserted by friends and co-workers.  Although Paul suffered greatly physically and undoubtedly was covered with scars, he also suffered emotionally and at times struggled spiritually, as reflected in Rom. 7:15-24 and  I Tim. 1:15.  Of course he also had his past life of persecuting Jesus’ followers to deal with as indicated in Phil. 3:13,14 and I Tim. 1:12,13.  

     But at the rapture, when Christ returns for His Church, we will all receive new glorified bodies like Jesus’ resurrected body (Phil. 3:20,21; I Cor. 15:51-53), except that we will be without scars and Jesus will still have His.  You will recall that on the evening of the day of Jesus’ resurrection, His disciples were hiding out “for fear of the Jews” when “Jesus  suddenly came and stood in their midst ( the doors still being shut) and said, to them,  ‘Peace be with you.’ And when He had said this, He showed them both His hands and His side. The disciples therefore rejoiced when they saw the Lord…But Thomas, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore were saying to him, ‘We have seen the Lord!’  But he said to them, ‘Unless I shall see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe’ ” (Jn. 20:19,20,24,25). 

     Well, a week later the disciples were together again, and this time Thomas was with them when “Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst…Then He said to Thomas, ‘Reach here your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand, and put it into My side; and be not unbelieving, but believing.’ Thomas answered and said to Him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ ” (Jn. 20:26-28).  

     Then a month later as the disciples watched Jesus ascending back to heaven, “two men in white clothing stood beside them; and they also said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This (same)Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven’  ” (Acts 1:10b,11).  It would seem that Jesus will have His scars for all eternity for us to see as a testimony of what He did for us to enable us to join Him in heaven while all of ours (both physical and emotional and the memories that go with them) will be erased.  We will be reminded for eternity of the great love our Savior exhibited in laying down His life for us (Jn. 10:11,15 cf Gal. 1:4; Tit. 2:14). We will be reminded of Isaiah’s prophecy: “But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed” (Isa. 53:5). We will be reminded that it was through Jesus shedding His blood for us that we were forgiven, released from our sins (Eph. 1:7; Heb. 13:12; Rev. 1:5).  We will join the heavenly choir praising God,  saying “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain …” (Rev. 5:12).  

     “The only scars in Heaven, they won’t belong to me and you. There’ll be no such thing as broken, and all the old will be made new. The only scars Heaven, are on the hands that hold you now. Hallelujah, hallelujah, for the hands that hold you now!”

In His hands,

Pastor Dave