Worthiness & Wounded Knees
A thousand miles of pain I'm sure
Led You to the threshold
Of my heart's screen door
To tell me what it is I'm dying for.
Gravity comes
Like a cold cold rain
To lead me to the rope again
But Someone is standing in my place…
-John Mark McMillan, “Carbon Ribs”
Every time I look at the scar on my left knee, I remember. We were living in Lexington, Kentucky at the time and I was an exuberant nine years old. It was summertime, the summer of the big tree in our front yard that I never tired of climbing. We were living in a rental home, but that tree felt like a true home to me and I wanted to live in its branches. One time I convinced my younger sister to lie down in a plastic coffin-like sled while I tried to hoist her up into the tree with a rope tied to one end. It did not go well. As I used all my might to pull the sled up to the branch which held me, the sled stood up on one end and flipped her out upside down and a bit less willing to blindly try my experiments with gravity and the laws of nature in the future.
The day I got the scar, I was attempting to pull both my brother and my sister in that same sled along the length of our driveway. Honestly this sled saw a lot more action in every season but winter for me and my sibling gang. Throughout our childhood, there was a years-long obsession with harnessing ourselves to jump ropes and taking turns pulling each other in various receptacles like boxes, skateboards, and the plastic sled. We were just beginning our enthusiastic foray into the world of pulling and pulley systems; this was reflected in the vigor with which I took off racing up the driveway, siblings in tow, only to realize too late that the sled and I were no match for the bumpy asphalt. We’d barely moved six inches when I face-planted. I caught myself with my hands, but my knees did not fare so well as the lower half of me was still tied to the sled. I cried like a five year old as I looked down and saw a healthy flap of skin peeled back, exposing my gaping wound which now had little bits of asphalt in it.
We were supposed to walk to the park together that afternoon with my mother and aunt, who had just arrived for a visit. Unwilling to miss the fun, I limped all the way to the park, barely bending my wounded knee. As my siblings frolicked and played I sat on the swings and watched them, feeling hurt and sorry for myself. Twenty three years later, I have a splotchy scar the size of a pencil eraser on my knee as a reminder of the sledding expedition that never quite took off.
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As we grow, we get hurt. When we become adults we learn to wear our scars on the inside—keeping them hidden from the outside world and even, sometimes, to ourselves. Why do we do this? Shame. Adam and Eve’s first instinct in response to God’s question, “Where are you?” was to hide. They were just as naked and exposed after they succumbed to the serpent’s temptation as they were before, but with the sinister addition of shame. I believe that broke God’s heart. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if Adam and Eve had come forward and said, “Here we are" in true repentance, refusing the baggage of blame or shame. Would anything have been different?
Several thousand years later, not much has changed. We sin, we hide, we cover up. How often are we willing to expose the most broken parts of ourselves to the light for healing instead of hiding in darkness? By hiding, aren’t we hurting ourselves more than anything? It is as if by keeping our brokenness hidden, we are attempting to spare God and ourselves the gory details. We don’t want anyone to see our wounds, and we assume God doesn’t want to see them either. The problem with viewing our wounds this way is that we are looking in the wrong place entirely. Do you remember what happens when Peter begins to walk on water but fearfully fixates on the wind and waves instead of keeping his eyes on Jesus?
Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.
But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”
Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him.(Matthew 14:29b-31a)
Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. Our natural, fear-based inclination is to fixate on the waves of our sin, brokenness, and shame and weigh them against the likelihood of God turning us away, or not. Personally, I try to clean myself up first to feel worthy of approaching God. When I sense myself sliding into a place of sinfulness or pain, I effectively tell God, “See ya on the other side of this. I’ll come back when I’m worthy.” But because of Jesus, and only because of Jesus, our best and worst assumptions about God and our own worthiness are flipped upside down, just like my little sister in that sled.
Because of Jesus, we worship a God who gently invites us to look at his wounds first instead of our own.
Looking upon our crucified Lord re-orients us to the truth: We are made in God’s image, God loves us, and God wants us to approach the throne of grace with confidence, receiving forgiveness and grace in our time of need.
When we focus on our wounds, we see our unworthiness.
When we focus on Jesus’ wounds, we behold our belovedness.
The God of the universe made himself intimately vulnerable in becoming human. He kept his promise of deliverance to us and was raised up onto his own tree, bleeding and exposed. I find it significant that after conquering death, Jesus chose to keep his scars – the very scars that brought his disciple Thomas to renewed faith. Those wounds still speak a better word than all our empty attempts at earning a love that is already ours.
He heals the brokenhearted
and binds up their wounds.
He determines the number of the stars
and calls them each by name.(Psalm 147:3-4)
A God vast enough to create the universe and call the stars by name is tender and loving enough to kneel down and place a bandaid on his kids’ skinned knees, wrapping their broken hearts in the healing bandages of his love. There is no greater love than this. Will we trust it?
My child, stop looking at your wounds, your hurts, your brokenness. They will not tell you the whole truth of who you are. Look upon my wounds, and be healed. Behold my love for you, and receive my peace.
Amen.
Going Deeper: Check out this awesome arrangement of Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus by Filipina artist Darla Baltazar.
Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in his wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of his glory and grace.