Why Jesus Still Bears the Scars

Adriene Rogers was a motivator, an encourager, and a leader of the faith. He was also passionate about presenting scriptural application to everyday life circumstances, and you'll hear that in today's message.

Now, let's join Adriene Rogers. Be finding John chapter 20 in the Word of God, and as you are looking for it, I ask you a question. What is the only man-made thing in heaven? The answer are the scars that we made in the hands and the feet and the side of the Lord Jesus that he took back to heaven with him.

He keeps those scars as a memorial of his death. Now, don't get the idea that he no longer bears those scars, for the Bible tells us that when he comes again, we will see those scars. Let's look, if we will, in verse 24.

And Thomas, one of the 12 called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples, therefore, said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I see in his hands the print of the nails.

And put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe. And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them. Then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst and said, Peace be unto you. Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands. And reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side, and be not faithless, but believing.

And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord, and my God. And would tonight that we would say the same thing. When we take a trip somewhere, if it's a vacation trip especially, we like to bring back a souvenir. But we go somewhere and we buy souvenirs. And a souvenir is just simply a way of saying, I have been there. And here's some token of the fact that I was there.

Now, most of our souvenirs are generally inexpensive and they're temporary and they're fun to bring back. But the Lord Jesus Christ visited this earth. And when Jesus visited this earth, he brought back a souvenir, not a cheap one.

He brought back something to say, I've been there. And what the Lord Jesus has carried now into heaven are the scars in his hands, the nail print in his side. It was in a resurrected body that Thomas saw the scars in Jesus' hands, the nail prints in Jesus' hands, and the scar in Jesus' side.

And one day when he comes again, we will see that. You might put in your margin Zachariah chapter 13 and verse 6. It speaks of the time when the Lord is going to come from the glory. And one shall say unto him, what are those wounds in thine hands? And he shall answer, those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.

That's speaking of the time when Jesus comes again. Up there in heaven right now is a man, the God-man. And up in heaven, seated on the throne, is the very Son of God with nail prints in his hand and a scar in his side.

Well, why do we have that? I want to mention three reasons why the Lord Jesus still bears those scars. They are a memorial. They are a reminder of three things. Number one, they are a reminder that he is a God who suffers, a God who suffers. You know, suffering is a perplexing thing. More people turn away from God because of the problem of history, which is a problem interlaced with suffering than they do because of the problem of science. I've spoken to some Jewish people who say, I don't believe in God anymore. I say, why don't you believe in God?

They say, because of the Holocaust. I cannot believe in a God that would allow such suffering. I've seen people when a loved one would be eaten away with some greedy malady, whether it be cancer or some other disease. They would say, I just don't want to have anything to do with God. I don't believe in God.

I can't understand this matter of suffering because here's the way the human mind begins to think. If God is a God of love and he loves me so much and yet he doesn't do anything to relieve this suffering, then he must not have any power. But on the other hand, they say, well, if he has the power to do it, but he doesn't do it, maybe he has no love.

Or then they ask another question. Maybe he doesn't have any love. Maybe he doesn't have any power. Maybe there is no God. Why suffering? Why do people suffer?

Well, there's a bigger question than that. Not why does God allow humans to suffer, but why does God allow himself to suffer? Have you ever thought about God as a God who suffers? Have you ever thought about God as a God as one who has pain?

How do those scars come into the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ, those nail prints, that scar into his side because of suffering? Not only did he suffer, but does he suffer? I want to give you some scriptures that speak of God with pain. For example, in Isaiah chapter 42 verse 14, God says, I cry like a travailing woman.

That is like a woman with labor pains. The Bible speaks of his people, his ancient people Israel, and he says in Isaiah chapter 63 and verse 9, in all of their afflictions, he was afflicted. Can you think of God as being afflicted? God spoke of Ephraim, which was the dominant tribe in Israel, and he says in Jeremiah 31 and verse 20, therefore my bowels are troubled for him. And the Hebrews spoke of the pit of the stomach as the place where there's pain. And of course, if you've known deep sorrow, you know that you're hurt right in the pit of your stomach. And God says, I have a deep pain. I have an inward pain for my son Ephraim. And he says in Hosea chapter 11 and verse 8, speaking of Ephraim, my heart is turned within me, talking about the pain that he suffers. And when you think about it, it's obvious that God would suffer. I mean, after all, we're his children. Did the father of the prodigal son suffer when the prodigal son was away from the father?

Of course. As a matter of fact, the Bible says in Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 30, grieve not the Holy Spirit of God. Have you ever thought about God as grieving? Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God. God can be grieved. You can cause God grief. And by the way, grief is a love word.

Your neighbor's kids will vex you. Your own kids will grieve you. You know the difference? Because you cannot be grieved by anyone unless you love that person. And God the Holy Spirit is grieved sometime when we allow filthy, dirty, rotten sin in our hearts and in our lives. And when we let the sun go down upon our wrath, we grieve the Holy Spirit of God. Yes, God can suffer.

I told you that the church is the body of Christ. Christ is the head. They feel pain when the body suffers. The body sends messages of pain through the nervous system to the head.

And it's because of the head that the body feels the pain and knows the pain. And when the church suffers, Jesus suffers. I spoke about the apostle Paul who met the Lord Jesus on the road to Damascus. And Jesus said to the apostle Paul, whose name then was Saul, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?

Jesus was persecuted because the body, the church was persecuted, Jesus was persecuted. The church is not only the body of Christ, the church is the groom of the bride of Christ. He is the groom. Well, does a groom suffer if the bride is faithless? Does Jesus suffer when we're worldly and untrue to Him?

Of course, we're His bride. How we must grieve Him. Yes, there is the question of suffering. Why do we suffer? But the greater question is why does God suffer? After all, He's God.

Why didn't He just wash His hands of the whole affair? He doesn't have to suffer. Why does God suffer? One thing the scars of Jesus tell us, if nothing else, He suffered. He suffered. The scars tell us that He is a suffering God. But I think what else they tell us.

Here's the second thing. They tell us that He is a sympathizing God, a sympathizing God. You see, when a man brings back souvenirs, that's a way of saying, I have been there.

And, friend, I want to tell you, Jesus visited this planet, and He has been there. He knows what you feel. He knows how you hurt. Hebrews chapter 4 and verse 15 says, We have not a high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, that was in all points tempted, tested like as we are, yet without sin. Jesus, Jesus knows sorrow. He knew it in His flesh when He was here.

The shortest verse in the English Bible is this, Jesus wept. Two words, but rich with meaning. We see that Jesus, when He saw the multitudes, Jesus says He was moved with compassion. Moved with compassion.

Don't pass over that. The word compassion is a composite word, com meaning with, and pathos to feel. He feels with us.

He was moved with compassion. The scars tell us that He knows, because of our pain, those scars tell us that He has entered into the pain of man. Yes, yes, humanity suffers, and God allows it. Why does God allow us to suffer? And why did He enter into our suffering? Because He loves us.

In the Garden of Eden, after man sinned, God set Adam into Eve. Cursed is the ground for your sake. He didn't say for your punishment. For your sake, you need pain, you need thorns, you need thistles, you need sweat.

Why? Because you now have a sinful nature, and something radically wrong is in the world today. Pain has a protecting purpose. If you had the choice and could say, I'll have no more pain in my body ever, that would be a foolish choice. You'd step on a nail and never know it.

You'd have an infection and never have a fever. You'd put your foot under the lawnmower, never know what happened to you. Our pain has a way of protecting us. Joyce and I were walking down a mountainside one day just as happy as we could be, walking through the wildflowers, and the next thing I looked, and she's on the ground, flat.

Just went down just like that. I stopped and I picked her up. She said, I turned my ankle. God has built into the ankle such a response, the nervous system, that immediately when the strain goes there, the leg goes limp so that you won't put further strain on that leg and on that ankle and that sinew and do more damage because pain has a protecting purpose. In this world that we live in, God has given us pain to protect us, and pain has a unifying purpose. Did you know that pain brings us together? Suffering brings us together. We've been through pain. You know what the Bible says? The Bible says when one member suffers, every member suffers with it. Pain not only protects us, but it brings us together. I've used this illustration before, but if you've ever been hanging pictures for your wife and hit your thumb with a hammer, there's no pain like that.

It's worse than having a baby, surely. Boy, I'll get it. You hit your thumb, I mean one that turns the thumbnail black, and it goes wah, wah, wah. And I'll tell you, the very first thing you did, I wasn't there, but I know this. You grabbed it and squeezed it. That's the first thing you did. I'll tell you the second thing you did. I wasn't there, but I know what you did. You put it in your mouth and sucked it. And I'll tell you the third thing you did. I wasn't there, but this is what you did. You did a little dance.

That's an amazing thing, isn't it? I mean, look, it was the thumb that was hurt, but when one member suffers, every member suffers with it. The hand, the mouth, the knees. What do your tongue have to do with your knees?

I don't know, but I know you got to do that dance. I know that. Because, friend, it's pain that draws us together. As a matter of fact, one doctor said, I can tell the health, the condition of the human body by the way that it reacts to pain. Lepers, for example, don't feel pain.

That's the reason why they wear their hands down. That's the reason why they smoke cigarettes and then burn their fingers because they cannot feel the pain. Pain has a unifying purpose. And a church that does not suffer when others suffer, a church that does not feel pain, a church that cannot enter into suffering, a church that cannot care for the dying and the hurting, cannot, that church is sick itself. I'll tell you what else pain does. Not only does that pain have a protecting purpose and not only does it have a unifying purpose, it has a correcting purpose. You see, God says, cursed is the ground for thy sake. It tells us that something is wrong and there's something wrong in the universe.

It's a little three-letter word. It's called sin. The universe has an infection. Do you know if you have an infection, all you do is deaden the pain, you're very foolish. But you see, the pain is there to tell us we need a Savior.

I mean, we have a world today that doesn't want a Savior, it wants a sedative. That's the reason kids get on drugs. They don't want the pain of having to deal with their father and their mother and moms and dads telling them, you can't do this and you can't do that. But kids, many times they get off on drugs and other things.

Why? Because they don't want to have to face the pain and they come to a place where they don't care what their parents think. That's the reason that some people get off into adultery and fornication. It's an escape from the pains of life and they get off into these things because of the insecurity there. The pain of loneliness and they're trying to kill the pain. It's the reason why people get drunk, to drown their problems, kill the pain. A drunk man, you ask him, how you doing? He says, feeling no pain. He tries to drown his problems, but the problem is those problems can swim. He can't drown them.

They come back to him again and again. That's the reason why people spend so much time watching perhaps the biggest sedative of all, it's television. Amuse means not to think, but you see the pain is there to tell us that there is something drastically wrong. We don't need a sedative, we need a savior. When we receive the Lord Jesus Christ as our personal savior, he doesn't give us a sedative, he gives us joy. Joy is not there to remove the pain.

Joy is there to help us to bear it until the last vestige of sin is removed from this universe and when the last vestige of sin is gone, then there'll be no more sorrow. There'll be no more tears. There'll be no more pain, there'll be no more pain, there'll be no more moan, there'll be no more groan, there'll be no more sickness, there'll be no more sorrow, there'll be no more crying and there'll be no more dying for all things are made new, but until that time, we'll know pain." The scars of Jesus tell us that He suffered. The scars of Jesus tell us that He sympathizes, He knows.

But I'll tell you what else the scars tell us. Not only is He a suffering God and a sympathizing God, they tell us He is a saving God. Because you see, He got those scars on that cross. He was nailed up to that cross. He carried our sins to the cross and He suffered, bled and died upon the cross. And the Bible says in Isaiah chapter 53 in verse 5, He was wounded for our transgressions.

He was bruised for our iniquities. He suffered our hell. He didn't have to suffer. But He came from heaven to this earth. He invaded this world that He might enter into our sufferings, that He might bear our sufferings. He could have stayed in the glory. He didn't have to come to earth. He chose to suffer. You say, that's strange. Why would a person choose to suffer?

Well, I think you can understand this. Let me ask you a question. Suppose you saved all of your life for a vacation. It's going to be the grand, glorious vacation. Where do you want to go? Switzerland, Hawaii, somewhere? Let's put you in Hawaii.

All right, you're in Hawaii. You're in the finest hotel there. You and your wife, you're celebrating.

Not a care in the world. The weather is perfect. The food is sumptuous. You're in love with one another.

You're having a wonderful time. And now let's suppose that you left your children here in the care of somebody else. Let's suppose that one of your children is in an automobile accident while you're in Hawaii. Now question, would you want to know about it? Would you want somebody to get on the phone and call you and mess up your vacation? Would you want to hear about it? I mean, or would you rather say, hey, don't bother me. We're having a wonderful time.

Yes, I know that my child has been broken and bruised and battered, but I don't want to know about it. We're having a wonderful time. Every parent in this building knows the answer, right? Yes, I want to know. Yes, forget the vacation. I want to know.

And if I can, I want to be there. Why? Because I love Him. I love her, and that's why Jesus left heaven. He could have stayed in heaven. He could have said, I just don't want to know.

I just don't care. But He's a God of love, and He loved us so much that He stepped out of the glory. He loved us so much that He walked the dusty shores of the streets of Nazareth and the sandy beach of Galilee. He loved us so much that He carried that cross to ugly Golgotha and died in agony and blood, and those scars that Thomas saw there in his hands say that He's a saving God. He's paid for our sins with His own blood.

Phil Donahue said this on one of his talk shows. He explained why he had become disillusioned with Christianity. He said, how could an all-knowing, all-loving God allow His Son to be murdered on a cross in order to redeem my sins? If God the Father is so all-loving, why didn't He come? Poor, pitiful soul.

He hasn't got a clue. God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. God did come.

God stepped out of heaven, took flesh upon Him, and carried that flesh to the cross. And when Thomas saw those scars, he had to know He's a suffering God. He had to know He's a sympathizing God. He understands because He's a suffering God.

And he had to know also that He's a saving God because the death of Jesus paid for our sins. But you know what a scar is? A scar? A scar is a wound that is healed.

Did you know what you need to do? You need to let Jesus heal your wounds and then use that as a testimony for Him. Do you know what convinced Thomas? Do you know what convinced Thomas? Thomas said, except I see the scars, the nail prints in his hand, except I thrust my hand into his side, I'll not believe. But when he saw those scars healed in that resurrection body, he said, my Lord and my God. Do you see, folks, a scar is a wound that is healed. The great testimony of our faith is not that we have faith to be healed, but that we have faith not to be healed and still serve God.

We still have the scars. It's not made perfect, but we love the Lord and we still serve Him. You know that Joyce and I have a little baby in heaven. His name is Phillip. The very first verse that I read after Phillip died, I came back from the hospital after having taken Phillip there to the emergency room and one of those sudden crib deaths. Joyce was standing there in the front door of that little white-framed parsonage, now by either side wanting the message of little Phillip. I didn't even have to say a word.

She could tell by the look on my face, but I said to her, sweetheart, he's gone. We went inside, found a Bible. The first verse I saw was a verse that I'd never seen in the Bible before.

2 Corinthians, the first chapter, blessed be God, the Father of all comfort and the Father of all mercies who comforts us in all of our trouble that we may be able to comfort others with the same comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. We were wounded, but I've seen my precious wife, Joyce, use those scars so many times to say to another mother or a little baby, I know, I understand. And you know, sometimes we preachers, we have all of our words and so forth, but there's something about a person who bears the scars, who has a testimony that nobody else has. The apostle Paul said in the book of Galatians, I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus, the word that he used was stigmata, the stigmatism, the scars.

No wonder people believed him. Have you no scars? Bring your wounds to Jesus. Use your scars for Jesus. Blessed be God who comforts us in all our tribulation that we may be able to comfort others with the same comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. Father, bear your truth to our hearts tonight and help us, Lord, as we remember this memorial of your incredible love. In Jesus' name, amen. If you would like to learn more about how you can know Jesus and how to deepen your relationship with him, simply click the Discover Jesus link on our website, lwf.org. For a copy of this message or additional resources, visit our online store at lwf.org or call 1-800-274-5683. We'll see you next time.