Christ does not hide his wounds. He offers them.
The doors were shut. Bolted fast. The air inside was thick with fear. The fear of betrayal, the fear of death, the fear that everything they had hoped for had come to nothing but a cross and a grave.
The room smelled of sweat and sorrow. It hummed with the low, sick hum of despair. Like a lás in the old tongue—a lock, a barrier thrown up quick and strong against a world gone dark.
And into that locked room, into that fear, he came. Not with a battering ram. Not with smoke and fire. He simply stood among them—the Risen One—with scars still fresh and breath still warm. And he spoke: “Peace be with you.” Not just the peace of quiet streets and safe houses. No. This was shalom, the old, deep word. Wholeness. Restoring. Life knitted back together where it had torn apart.
The old preachers called this peace that binds kin together, sibb—not just a truce, but a new birth of belonging. It is the friðr—the sacred peace, the peace you fought to win and vowed never to break. And He gave it to them freely. The same lips that had cried, “It is finished,” now breathed peace onto broken men.
And he breathed again. He breathed as once he had over Adam, shaping dust into a living soul. He breathed as one who holds life in his hands and kindles it like a flame in the heart of the world.
“Receive the Holy Spirit.”
The breath was not for comfort alone. It was for sending. Forgive, he said. Loose burdens. Untie sins knotted fast on bent backs. Carry mercy out into the broken world like seeds thrown wide by a sower’s hand.
Forgiveness—aphēsis—release, sending away, unburdening.
Forgiveness— forgiefan—to give away fully, no strings.
Forgiveness—Vergebung—to yield, to hand over, to set free.
In any language, the Church’s lifeblood would not be law or might or cleverness. It would be forgiveness—wild, lavish, stubborn as the Risen Christ himself.
But Thomas wasn’t there. Thomas, the Twin—twin of flesh and twin of heart split between longing and doubt, hope and hurt. A soul doubled, divided against itself. When the others told him, “We have seen the Lord,” he couldn’t believe it. Wouldn’t. Not unless he touched the wounds. Not unless he laid his fingers in the ruin and the wonder of Christ’s broken body. And Christ, patient as rain that wears away stone, waited for him. Eight days later, the doors were shut again. Fear still clinging in the corners. Doubt still thick in the air. And Christ came again. Not with scorn. Not with anger. With the same peace. The same wounds. The same open hands.
“Put your finger here. See my hands. Bring your hand. Touch my side. Do not doubt, but believe.”
Christ does not hide his wounds. He offers them. He does not shame the doubter. He invites them deeper. The wounds have not been erased by the Resurrection. They have been redeemed. Still there. Still gaping. But now, full of life. In the old tongues, wund meant both wound and wonder. It meant sorrow and wound together. To be wounded meant to carry sorrow and wonder in the same hands.
So Thomas, broken and blessed, falls to his knees: “My Lord and my God!”
And in that cry, something cracks open not just in the room, but in the world.
Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. In Irish, Beannaithe—blessed, favored, marked out by God’s own breath, set apart for joy rooted not in sight, but in the gift of faith. That blessing reaches across the ages. It reaches through locked doors and shuttered hearts. It reaches right here, now, to us. Us, who have not seen, but have believed. Us, whose hands have not touched the wounds, but whose hearts have been broken open by the Word. Us, who have been breathed upon, washed at the font, fed at the altar, sent into the world not with fear, but with forgiveness.
The room was locked, but Christ entered. The hearts were bound, but Christ spoke peace. The hands were empty, but Christ filled them with Spirit. The past was heavy, but Christ threw the future wide open. The sorrow is upon us, still. The fear is near, some days more than others. But what’s upon us is not us. And what weighs us down has been lifted. And the One who bore the wounds still bears us.
So we go about now. With peace in our bones. With forgiveness in our hands.
With breath in our lungs that did not come from us, but from the One who makes all things new. Christ lives. And he has breathed on us.
So we go about now in the breath of Christ, whose Spirit fills what fear had hollowed out. Go with hands unbound, bearing forgiveness like seed cast on the wind. Go with hearts made whole, where sorrow has been stitched to joy by wounded hands. Go in the peace that breaks locked doors, in the mercy that leaves no sin unlifted, in the love that speaks our names before we have learned to answer. We are not alone. We are not forgotten. We are not the wounds we carry. We are the ones whom Christ has called, breathed upon, sent.
And so we go now, because he lives. And he goes with us.
