“Divine Unfairness”
April 27, 2025
John 20:19–31
Every year, the Sunday following Easter, we have the story that many known as “Doubting Thomas” — about the disciple who just could not believe that Jesus had appeared to his friends after the crucifixion:
But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told 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 in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”
A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
Often people focus on the topic of seeing and believing when reading about Thomas. I have for many years. But this year I’m struck most by the topic of touching the wounds of Jesus.
John presents us the wounded God. After death. Beyond resurrection. Jesus is wounded.
One of life’s hardest lessons is the realization that life is profoundly unfair. As a child, when objecting to a parental decision, your mom or dad was right when you were told, “Well, life ain’t fair, deal with it!” The feeling of injustice goes on to be amplified in adulthood.
Life is not fair. It has no guarantees. Wounds occur. In marriage. In health. In family relationships. In careers. In society. Unfairness runs through every aspect of human life. Wounds never cease. Many never heal.
Perhaps the heaviness of the world right now draws my attention toward those wounds. The daily assault of reports of school shooting, wars that will not cease, deportations, defunding critical supports for children and the sick across the globe. You may have other wounds that are forefront in your thoughts.
A week after another Easter celebration, what do we make of the God who presides over such a world? It may be all well and good to say that God temporarily tolerates injustice for the sake of some greater good, and that may even be technically true at times. But it is of little comfort to those who must bear within themselves wounds unfairly struck, wounds fresh, wounds that bleed but do not easily bind up.
Jesus appears after the resurrection and shows his wounds that do not bind-up. They were the result of the human devotion to power. They remain eternal signs of human culpability in the unending attempt to eradicate God. His wound scream of injustice inflicted on one who was innocent.
Is there comfort or disturbance for you in the theological idea of a wounded God? Does divine unfairness, Jesus treated unjustly and unfairly by the powers of the world unsettle? We have a wounded God, a vulnerable God, who bears brokenness even on a spiritual body.
I am thinking of divine unfairness making possible the ultimate and enduring means of grace, and sharing our woundedness moving us from doubt to peace, from fear to trust.
To peace.
