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The sermon centers on the physical wounds Christ retained after His resurrection as proof that the risen Lord is the same Jesus who was crucified. Those wounds signify His finished atonement, continuing priesthood, heavenly intercession, sympathy toward sufferers, and future role as Judge. Believers are warned not to expect exemption from suffering but are encouraged to see affliction as fellowship with Christ and a path to honor. Sinners are urgently invited to come directly to Christ and find forgiveness, peace, and healing through His wounds rather than through religious ceremony or personal merit.
Theological center: The wounded yet resurrected Christ is the atoning sacrifice, eternal priest, sympathetic Savior, and glorified Lord who intercedes for and heals His people.
Applications: Look to Jesus in suffering · Come to Christ for rest · Trust Christ’s wounds for salvation · Consider the meaning of Christ’s scars
Primary texts: Luke 24:40 · John 20:27 · Hebrews 12:2
“He showed them His hands and His feet.” Luke 24:40. I HAVE selected this sentence as the text, although I shall not strictly adhere to it. What was to be seen on Christ’s hands and feet? We are taught that the prints of the nails were visible and that in His side there was still the gash of the spear. For did He not say to Thomas? “Reach here your finger and behold My hands and reach here your hand and thrust it into My side and be not faithless, but believing”? I wish to draw your attention to the fact that our Lord Jesus Christ, when He rose again from the dead, had in His body the marks of His passion. If He had pleased, He could readily have removed them. He rose again from the dead and He might have erased from His body everything which could be an indication of what He had suffered and endured before He descended into the tomb. But no! Instead thereof, there were the pierced hands and feet and there was the open side. What was the reason for this? There was no absolute necessity for it—it could easily have been dispensed with. What, then, were the reasons? I shall endeavor to enter into this subject and I hope we may draw some profitable instructions from there. First, what influence did the exhibition of the hands and feet have upon the disciples? Secondly, why is it that Jesus Christ, now in heaven, bears with Him the scars in His flesh? And, then, thirdly, is there any lesson for us in the fact that Jesus Christ still wears His wounds? I think there is. I. First, then, OF WHAT USE WAS THE EXHIBITION OF THOSE WOUNDS TO THE DISCIPLES? I reply at once that they were infallible proofs that He was the same person! He said, “Behold My hands and feet; that it is I, Myself.” It was to establish His identity—that He was the very same Jesus whom they had followed, whom at last they had deserted—whom they had beheld afar off crucified and slain and whom they had carried to the tomb in the gloom of the evening. It was the very same Christ who was now before them and they might know it—for there was the seal of His sufferings upon Him! He was the same person. The hands and feet could testify to that. You know, beloved, had not some such evidence been visible upon our Savior, it is probable that His disciples would have been unbelieving enough to doubt the identity of His person. Have you ever seen men changed, extremely changed in their external appearance? I have known a man, perhaps five or six years ago. He has passed through a world of suffering and pain and when I have seen him again, I have declared, “I would not have known you if I had met you in th…