Sabbath Devotional :: Wounds, Doubt, and Hope

Stained glass detail of St. Thomas and Jesus from a window in St Birinus’ Catholic Church in Dorchester-on-Thames.

Introduction from Linda Hoffman Kimball: This has been a week of trial and heartache for many. How do we face the incomprehensible reality of another school shooting, plane crashes and bombings? How do we process the injuries set off by hoaxes, prejudice, cross-purposed journalism, intractable social issues and our own sometimes overwhelming brokenness? Today’s Sabbath Devotional comes from Erika E.p. Munson whose inspiration is drawn from the fine arts and her own heart of depth and compassion. She suggests that there is something miraculous about true discipleship that “involves a creative blend of deep pessimism and buoyant hope.”

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At Temple Square last April I heard the Tabernacle Choir perform the premiere of A Cloud of Witnesses by Mack Wilberg and David Warner. It was transcendent — a tone poem that tells the Easter story. There are no soloists; the words of Jesus, Mary, the disciples, and angels are sung by the choir. This artistic choice is powerful — To quote the program notes: “We don’t simply hear Mary or Peter’s thoughts and words — rather the choir and audience experience them communally and approach a more personal and empathetic understanding of their import.”

I was particularly moved during the famous scene when Christ shows his wounds to Thomas, who needs to see them in order to believe. You gotta love a skeptic; I often count myself among them! But beyond the need to help Thomas in his discipleship, it occurred to me momentous that even the risen Christ left paradise with scars. Scars? The resurrected, sinless Lord? How do I reconcile this with the Mormon belief that through the atonement “all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame,” (Alma 40:23)? “Thus onto eternal perfection” is the promise in one of our favorite hymns, conjuring up images of a march toward uniform faultlessness, a wiping away of the reality of experience — if taken too far, an Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Sure, we could assume that Jesus is the exception to the rule, that for him and him alone the eternal import of his wounds demands eternal physical evidence. But I think there’s something more at work here. He is our example in all things.

Our wounds are part of us forever. Through the gigantic empathetic experience that is the atonement, our pain is acknowledged. It is made holy. We learn how to live with it, becoming larger than we were as we integrate it into who we are. We use it to witness the suffering of others. “Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.” writes poet Mary Oliver. Maybe that communal experience is part of Thomas’s story.

It’s my story too. My civic and ecclesiastical engagement is motivated by the belief that the first step in change-making is acknowledging our brokenness: I’m a mess and you’re a mess, — but what can we do together? Bringing this struggle into the public square doesn’t come naturally to an introvert like me who would rather be sitting at home by the fire than wrangling supporters, listening to the opposition, and planning next steps. But there’s something irresistible that keeps me in the thick of things. It involves a creative blend of deep pessimism and buoyant hope: Thomas’s stubborn realism that was in the end, a witness to a miracle. I am comforted by the story of this holy doubter. It gives me the courage to acknowledge the darkness while reaching toward the light.