The One Who Needed to Touch the Scars

When Jesus came back alive, his friends were all together in a locked room. All of them but one.

Thomas wasn't there.

And when his friends found him, their faces were shining. "We saw him! We saw Jesus! He's alive!"

But Thomas shook his head.

Thomas had loved Jesus so much. He had watched him die. He had felt his own heart break into pieces on the saddest, darkest day. And now his friends wanted him to hope again?

He was afraid. Afraid to believe and be wrong. Afraid to let his broken heart stand back up, only to be knocked down all over again.

So Thomas said a brave, sad, stubborn thing. "Unless I see the holes where the nails went in. Unless I put my own finger right there in his hands. I won't believe it. I can't."

Maybe you have wanted something to be true so badly that hoping for it felt dangerous. Thomas sat inside that feeling for a whole week. A long, heavy week.

Then the friends were together again, and this time Thomas was with them. The doors were locked tight.

And Jesus came and stood right in the middle of them.

"Peace to you," he said.

Then he turned and looked straight at Thomas, the way you look at someone you came all the way back for.

"Here, Thomas," Jesus said, and he held out his hands. "Put your finger here. See my hands. Reach out and touch my side. Don't be afraid to believe. Believe."

And there they were. The scars.

Jesus didn't hide his wounds. He didn't make Thomas feel small for needing to touch them. He brought them close and let the doubting one put his hand right where it hurt.

That is the heart of God. Locked doors and locked-up doubts are no trouble to him at all. He walks in with his scarred hands open and says, here, it's really me.

And Thomas didn't even need to touch them after all. His whole heart just came rushing up off the floor.

"My Lord," he whispered, "and my God."

Then Jesus said something for Thomas, and something for you as well.

"You believe, Thomas, because you have seen me. But there is a blessing for the ones who never see my face and love me anyway."

He meant you.

You who have never put your finger in the scars. You who only ever heard the story. He was thinking of you in that room, and he called you blessed.

Because the King who beat death keeps his wounds. They stayed. They are part of how you will know him when you finally see him.

That blessing has already begun in you, every single time you love him without seeing. You belong to him today. And one day you will stand in front of those same scarred hands, and you will see for yourself what Thomas saw.