Wounds = Faith
messageofhope | Reflection | Sunday April 11 2010Integrating Faith and Sports
Gospel: Jn 20: 19-31
Week of 4/11/10
In this past week’s Gospel, we discover faith in our wounds.
On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” Now a week later his disciples were again inside and Thomas was with them. Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.” Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.” Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name. Jn 20: 19-31
Our Wounds in Christ
As the “wonder” of my faith in Christ seems to grow, the more questions I begin to formulate. The last couple of times hearing this particular Gospel, I have been thinking what the deal is with Christ having visible wounds as he re-appeared to the disciples? He died, and rose again, yet the wounds of His remained?
Yet the more I dive into this thought, the more and more I find myself relating to Thomas. Much like Thomas, it took the emotional and spiritual wounds of my own life to be “seen and touched” for me to surrender myself to say, Jesus, “My Lord and my God!” And for me, these emotional and spiritual wounds came from the athletic fields of my youth and young adulthood.
I had once heard a good friend, Joe Ehrmann, talk about the tremendous wounds of manhood in our culture. He broke it down into three different categories:
Category #1: Cultural/Nature Wounds
Here we see the weight of the culture do its damage on our emotional and spiritual well-being. The constant message of power (in all of its forms) that equals manhood, directly contradict the message of being baptized into Christ. This caused many of my wounds trying to become someone I was not created to be. The constant pressure to be viewed as dominant and respected as a “man” many times cripple us to hear and let the words of Christ sink in. A hardened heart versus a heart that is open to grace. We continually measure and compare ourselves to other men, in hopes of feeling better about ourselves based on a higher paying job, winning more games, or having a prettier wife than those men around us. We isolate ourselves with these feelings and are told “this is the way it is” by the entertainment world and especially the athletic culture we find ourselves participating in. Ultimately we spend our lives trying to become a “man” in the eyes of our peers and culture and forget that we are authentically made in the image of God. We forget that the definition of manhood is found “in Him,” because it is “in Him, that we live, we move and have our being.” As St. Paul reminds us, that at times we are unaware that we are baptized into Christ (Rom 6:3), that we have our identity in Him, and that it isn’t about becoming more “of a man” who has to validate lies of the culture, rather we become more Christ-like, and become “One Bread, One Body.” As this great hymn reminds us:
Gentile or Jew,
Servant or free,
Woman or man, no more
One bread, one body,
one Lord of all,
one cup of blessing which we bless.
And we, though many,
throughout the earth,
we are one body in this one Lord
Category #2 Nurture Wounds
Some statistics are showing that there may be a rise of professional athletes having a dysfunctional relationship with their fathers, and the trend seems to be overbearing at the youth sports level. For many young athletes, at times their own interpretations of love from their parents, especially father to son relationships, tend to come from whether they succeed on the athletic fields or not. In other words, from the child’s perspective, if I do well and win the game, I will be loved, if not, I will not be loved. Love tied to power and results, love tied to a crisis of identity. It reminds me of a story that a coach told me a couple of months ago. He says that in 30 years of coaching, he has had the kids write about the likes and dislikes of the season, and without a doubt the number one reason for dislikes of the season, especially within the last 10 years has been, “the ride home with mom and dad.”
I have a 2 year old son who most likely will want to play sports in a couple of years. I have no illusion that my “wounds” have the capacity to come up and out when he steps onto the field. This leaves me to foot of the cross, as well as to pray that I can parent the way my parents loved me throughout my childhood on and off the field of play.
Category #3 Our Actions
Benjamin Franklin once wrote, “Sin is not hurtful because it is forbidden, but it is forbidden because it is hurtful.” That makes a lot of sense in my life. When I think about my sins, past and present, I can’t help to think of two things. Number one, a lot of my sins have been a reaction, action, or words due to my wounds. These nature and nurture wounds have created insecurities within my soul, thus creating a template to act and say things to try to “cover-up” my vulnerabilities. Secondly, I continually underestimate the depth of what my sins do to the state of my soul. I do things and become someone I am not made to be and do. As a result, I can’t help but to feel the “darkness” that my actions make me feel, because of my tendency to turn my back on the “Light” which is Christ. In other words I do things not according to God’s will, rather my will. And as St. Paul says, “I do the things I don’t want to do but the things I want to do those I don’t do.” These actions, this struggle, create wounds in my soul, because ultimately I am not being my authentic self.
Thinking back as a youngster in sports, I can relate to all three of these categories. Born athletic, I couldn’t help but to be tempted to measure my self-worth and identity to the sports commercials and lives of professional athletes. Here is where I had meaning, here is where I had worth, and here is where I found love from culture. And when I put myself on this foundation of identity, not my baptismal identity, I was now creating a template for nature’s wounds. These wounds were deepened when my need to be accepted by my peers was based on false competition on the playgrounds and athletic fields. Through this tremendous need for love from others based on wins and losses, my nurture wounds became apparent. And finally due to trying to live up to these nature and nurture wounds and self-worth, my need to win became at all costs, resulting in actions, deeds, and words that were not that of love. Adding my three categories of wounds up made me feel very isolated and lonely in the world of athletics. And thus it wasn’t until I saw and touched my wounds, that my faith in Christ became real.
Wounds of the Cross
I was struck by something that was said by my pastor during Holy Week a couple of weeks ago. The actions of Christ have always and will always be an “everlasting instant.” That the wounds of Christ on the cross, for each and every one of us, will always be present, because that moment of death to life, bondage to freedom, darkness to light, will and is always happening, moving and having its being.
So whatever wounds we have, had, and will have, they are in Him, the One who conquered death, the One who heals us. So as we begin to probe “our wounds,” let us be reminded that they are in Christ. Let us rejoice and know that in Him we find peace, hope, healing and faith. In Him we find our authentic selves. And in Him, we move and have our being, which includes the sidelines, stands, and the athletic fields of our culture.
