EASTER begins not with certainty, but with confusion. Mary Magdalene arrived at the tomb looking not for glory but for the dead — a reminder that the first moments of resurrection are not triumphant in the way we imagine them. They are bewildering, tearful, and strangely quiet.
That matters, because the Church can sometimes speak of Easter as though it were a neat resolution to everything that came before. Good Friday is terrible, but Sunday clears it up. Death is dreadful, but resurrection tidies the narrative. We move quickly to the flowers, the music, the joy of the Alleluia; and all of that is right in its place.
Yet the Gospels themselves are slower, stranger, and more searching than that. The risen Christ is not recognised immediately: he is mistaken for a gardener. He appears in rooms still full of fear. He comes to disciples who are not ready, and perhaps never could have been. Of course, when he comes, he also comes with wounds.
THIS is one of the most important details in all the resurrection accounts. The marks of crucifixion are not erased: they remain visible in the risen body. Resurrection does not smooth them away as if glory depended on forgetting what has been suffered. The body that stands among the disciples is still the body that was broken. That shouldn’t be a problem for Easter; it is part of its truth.
It means that resurrection is not the denial of pain, but the redemption of it. It means that suffering is not declared unreal simply because Christ is alive. It means that death does not have the last word, even though its marks are still visible. That is a more demanding claim than simple optimism, but it is also a more honest one.
PERHAPS that is why Easter continues to speak so deeply to those who are faithful, but bruised. Many Christians come to this season loving the Church sincerely, while also carrying sadness about her. Many believers are not untouched, but tired. They have known disappointment, grief, confusion, scandal, or long stretches of silence in prayer. They have seen things that they once trusted become more complicated than they hoped. In such a world, a resurrection that sounded too smooth would not ring true.
This, however, is not the resurrection that we are given. We are given Christ himself, alive and wounded.
Thomas understands this better than he is given credit for. He is usually treated as the one who missed the point; but perhaps he simply knows that cheap hope is no hope at all. When Christ appears to him, he does not offer a polished explanation. He offers his wounds: “Put your finger here.” The first gift of Easter is not an argument: it is a wounded presence.
AS SOMEONE in a discernment process for the priesthood, I find that deeply consoling. It suggests that the Christian faith is not for those who have somehow remained unscarred, but for those who have been marked and not abandoned. It suggests that holiness is not the absence of pain, but the refusal to let pain be final. It suggests that the church, to speak truthfully of new life, need not pretend to be seamless.
Indeed, it may be precisely the opposite. The church’s witness becomes more credible when she stops trying to sound untroubled and begins to speak with greater truthfulness, humility, and hope: not wallowing in injury, still less excusing it, but refusing the temptation to act as though resurrection meant tidy surfaces and restored composure. Easter is not about looking recovered: it is about meeting the living Christ.
In a culture shaped by presentation, filters, and image management, this matters. We are constantly invited to appear better, cleaner, and more resolved than we really are. Easter offers something more human and holier. It offers a Lord who is alive, glorious — and still recognisably wounded.
THE church does not need to become sombre to be honest, or restrained to be reverent; but, perhaps, in Eastertide she is called to speak of joy in a way spacious enough to include memory, tears, doubt, and the long ache of what has been endured — not because the resurrection is weak, but because it is strong enough to hold all of these.
The risen Christ still bears his wounds. Because he does, those who are wounded may still dare to hope that nothing given to God is wasted, and that even what has been pierced may yet be made radiant.
The Hopeful Ordinand blogs at theemberpost.substack.com.
