Do not Run from your Scars

I have very visible scars on my face. I cannot hide them. 

Growing up, until the age of thirteen, I thought I was just another style of the human brand. At thirteen, I came to realize that this was not the case. There was a human brand and I was an aberration, something tolerated and even sympathized with, but never accepted. But kids are unbelievably perceptive creatures. We know when we are treated differently. I do not blame my peers. No one is taught how to value diversity. We are taught how to survive, and I agree that if survival is the focus, then uniformity is the means. My marred face was testament that I was not part of the survival group. I was an outsider. I would have to figure out a way to prove my worth if I wished to be included and valued.

            So I learned how to leverage my scars. I was never strong. But I acted like I was. I acted as though my scars made me bold. This was a veneer. 

Because in the secret of the morning before the bathroom mirror, I looked at myself and wondered, ‘Why?’

When I was young I would get angry with God for giving me a functioning mind and such visible and unchangeable imperfections. As I got older and too tired to be angry I filled myself with pity. I became a martyr in my mind. Outwardly I was confident, even arrogant. But in my mind, these scars were my cross to bear. And this does not sound wrong in and of itself; but in my mind, the cross was bore until I received the glory, not Him. I bore the cross until everyone realized I was such a brave soul…we are so pathetic, are we not?

Life went on and I realized that all of us have scars; marks of imperfection that we are desperately trying to conceal or pretend are not there or leverage as strength.

But we all have scars. Every single one of us.

And if we are honest, we are all ashamed of our scars, too. We know that they are brutal lines of Sin-stained imperfection. They are lines inflicted on us by family and strangers and they are lines we have inflicted on others. But there is no question in our minds, scars are evil, mournful, so far removed from how we should have been, perfected children of the Father. This distortion in our souls and on our bodies, we know is unnatural.

We are all the one being whipped and we are all the one doing the whipping.

We all have scars. Mine are just easy to find.

            One day this changed, a little. I was in front of the mirror and by this point I had a resigned acceptance of my face. But no one ever embraces their scars and in a moment of self-pity I ran my fingers over the left side of my cheek and wondered ‘what if, and why?’

Then all of a sudden, I imagined Jesus standing right beside me. There he was in the flesh, a short Jewish guy with olive skin and trimmed black hair. And there were tears in his eyes; glistening pools of pain and hurt and joy. He was weeping again; just like with Mary and Martha and Lazarus. My head dropped in shame for I knew I had disappointed him with my selfish obsession, with my despairing self-pity.

But as my eyes fell to the tile and my chin dropped, he caught it. His hand swiftly extended and caught my chin, thrusting it back up forcefully. As he lifted my eyes back onto his, they had transfigured. They were not wet with hurt anymore. Now they were wet with passion, with fiery indignation, not toward me but toward imperfection, toward the entire idea of a scar.

He was furious at Scars!

 I knew this intuitively. I knew he was gripped by a fit of divine, intolerable rage; righteous fury that there had ever come to exist these imperfections, these brutal lines wrought by Sin, when he and his Father had something completely different planned.

He was not gentle Jesus, meek and mild. He was the terrifying God, the Holy and Righteous One. He was the Mighty Warrior. And then he spoke to me. He did not say an audible word, but with these unyieldingly passionate eyes and tears on his cheek, I heard his voice in my heart, and his fire in my soul. He said,

            “Do you want to see my scars? They’re right here (and he pointed to his hands). They’re right here (and he pointed to his feet and his side). They’re right here, (and he turned around to show me the branded maulings on his back). It is because imperfection exists that I came! It is by my scars that one day all will be made right again!”

            He was shaking at this point. He was incensed, not at me or any of his brothers and sisters, but at Satan, at Scars, at Death. He was incensed by what the world had become, by this horrid blight on his Father’s original plan of a perfect, joyous family. He continued,

            “Do not run from these marks of humiliation. Embrace them. Love them! For it is by my wounds, you are healed. I became imperfection for you and your brothers’ sake. And until the day when I completely obliterate all scars, and believe me I can hardly wait for that day, walk with your head high and your heart low; low enough to see my cross. For that is where imperfection was swallowed up. You are in a faith which boasts of imperfection, for then healing can happen! Look at my back. Gaze at my hands. Touch my side if you must! But do not forget these. These are my scars, just like yours, which I volunteered to take so that you could come home, so that all of you could come home. And I would have taken a million more for you…For I love you, the Father loves you, and we want you to be with us. We want you to know what it’s like to live without scars…forever.

And you will.

Perhaps your lines will remind you of mine. Perhaps this was a blessing from my Father that yours are so visible. You cannot run from them, you cannot hide them or ignore them. They are there and everyone can see them. They are a thorn in your flesh.

Good…let it be so!

Look at your lines of imperfection, remember mine, and then rejoice that one day they will all be no more! And teach your brothers to do the same. Boast in your scars! Teach them that. For in the middle of that reddened disfigured mark on your face is the seed of redemption for all mankind.

I have entered the scar and I am killing it because it could not kill me!

In the center of your brother’s deepest hurt and agony is where you will find me and the Father. We have become the Scar. The Righteous One has become Sin and we are destroying it from the inside out. Life is swallowing up Death. One day my son. One day…do not forget these.”

            Then he disappeared.

            I still sometimes feel ashamed. Of course I do. But I remember those eyes when I seep self-pity, the incensed and weeping eyes. I remember his disfigured back and I long to kiss it. We are in a faith full of imperfect people. I have caused so much pain in life and for that I am ashamed. You and I are no different.

But when the shame seeks to overwhelm us like a wave swallowing us beneath, Jesus comes and says, ‘Stand up! I know what you have done and I know what has been done to you! Look at me. I too have scars. And these scars are healing yours. Now go live! Live a life which witnesses to what these scars are doing—they are returning Life to the world!’

And it is for that reason we have hope and joy. Because standing right beside us is our perfect brother who came down to get us, who took on scars, just like us, so that he could free us from them…one day, now. Let us not run from our scars. Let us look at ours and rejoice in his. For Life has already won and it had nothing to do with us.  We will be perfected. We will be perfected in him, because he became imperfect like us. We are a kingdom of broken people healed by the One who became all brokenness just to bring us home.