
“And we should never forget that when Jesus rose from the dead, as the paradigm, first example, and generating power of the whole new creation, the marks of the nails were not just visible on his hands and his feet. They were the way he was to be identified. When art comes to terms with both the wounds of the world and the promise of resurrection and learns how to express and respond to both at once, we will be on the way to a fresh vision, a fresh mission.” –N.T. Wright in Surprised by Hope (Harper Collins, 2008, p.224).
In this context I offer the following free verse from my forthcoming book, Remembering Softly: A Life in Poems :
LIVING WOUNDS
Christ’s wounds—
holes, gaps, gashes?—
remain, continue there,
healed; no pain or festering.
But they remain
places on the body
of the God-Man,
remembering.
A mystery!
There,
in the wounded place
we are part of Christ.
The nails are gone,
the sword withdrawn,
the thorns pulled out.
But these wounds live,
efficacious.
When His followers also
stand gashed and riddled,
touching our wounds to His;
bearing scars from
our own sins and
those of others
but festering no more;
together we form
places of healing
in the body of Christ.
~Catherine Lawton