“What happened to you? You look awful!”

“You should see the other guy.” 

It’s a stock phrase for the man post-bar fight as well as the boxing champion. You’ll find it in movies or as the punch line of a joke, but you probably never thought of putting the words in the mouth of Jesus. Strange as it sounds, however, Jesus can most truthfully say, “You should see the other guy.”

First off, Jesus didn’t look awful. When he rose from the dead, his body was glorious and heavenly. And yet, he still had the wounds of his crucifixion. In fact, that is how the apostles recognize him. When the disciples thought he was a ghost, Jesus told them “Look at my hands and my feet” (Lk 24:39). Doubting Thomas insisted on touching those wounds (Jn 20:19-31).

The wounds of Jesus are how we recognize him. David Rawlings and Gillian Welch’s Americana song, “By the Mark,” beautifully describes how Christ’s scars identify him:

A man of riches
May claim a crown of jewels
But the king of heaven
Can be told from the prince of fools

By the mark where the nails have been
By the sign upon his precious skin
I will know my savior when I come to him
By the mark where the nails have been

Ironically, the scars from Jesus’ death mark the victory of life over death. The wounds don’t hurt Christ anymore—they hurt the other guy: death, the devil, and hell. Since, “by dying he has destroyed our death, and by rising, restored our life” (Preface I of Easter), Christ’s scars are trophies of his conquest. 

Like a boxer entering the ring, Jesus duked it out with death. But Jesus outsmarted death, turning its punches against it, conquering death by death. By dying, Jesus dealt death a death blow. 

The Book of Revelation uses vivid apocalyptic imagery to describe the ironic demise of the devil, death, and hell. After the devil gets tossed in, “Then Death and Hades were thrown into the pool of fire” (Rev 20:10, 14). The devil’s plan really backfired. The devil thought death had defeated Jesus and hell had swallowed him up, but Christ exploded all three and swallowed them up in his victory (1 Cor 15:54).

In his wounds, we see the reality of Jesus’ victory over every form of darkness. Christ keeps his wounds for us. They remind us that the other guy, all our sins, wounds, darkness, and despair, are no match for the Lord of life. He has beaten them. He has the scars to prove it. In those wounds, we find healing for our wounds. In the words of the prayer Anima Christi, we turn to Jesus and say, “Within Thy wounds hide me.”

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Image: Giovanni Antonio Galli, Christ Displaying His Wounds