Dogs and Scars that Remain

I don't like dogs.

Now before you dog lovers block my URL, let me explain.

Sometime around the age of four I was living in the town of Raymond, Washington. As far as a kid that young goes, we had a large backyard made even bigger due to its bleeding into our neighbor's. I don't remember much about that house or that yard except for one unforgettable thing: a dog lived there.

One afternoon I decided to trek across our backyard and visit the dog while it was chained up to its dog house. As I got closer, the dog got excited and jumped up to greet me. In my sub-four foot glory, gravity took over. Since it outweighed me by double, the dog easily knocked me over. Just as quickly, I was tangled up in the dog's chain. I somehow got loose but not before the damage was done. As I kicked and crawled my way out, the dog's paw swiped across my face and pierced my skin. I ran home where my parents whisked me away to the ER. There I was treated to 40 stitches across my forehead, the bridge of my nose, and just beneath my right eye. The cut drew so close to my right eye I'm lucky I'm not blind. Needless to say, I was a bit nervous around dogs for most of my life. While they no longer scare me, I have never developed an appreciation for the canine family.

While my psychological scars proved to be minimal (it matters little whether I do or do not like dogs), the physical scars remain. I still have noticeable scar at my hairline. If you were to get very close, you could also easily see the scars across the bridge of my nose and beneath my right eye. These scars will always be with me. They tell a story of when I was a four year old little boy who wanted to pet the neighbor's dog.

These facial scars are not my only scars. On my right thigh is a single black dot as a consequence for placing a freshly sharpened pencil into my leg while simultaneously the person behind me kicked my school desk chair. On my left forearm is my prize scar: an inch long gash resulting from an uncut finger nail gouging me in an overzealous mosh pit.

While these scars tell a story of injury, they tell another story as well. They tell the story of parents, doctors, stitches, skin, and cells. They tell the story of healing.

We all have scars. With every scar there are two stories: a story of trauma and a story of recovery. These two stories are so intertwined they become two sides of the same coin. With the story of wounds comes the story of repair. The healing presupposes the injury.

Jesus has scars, scars indispensable to his very being. It was those scars, those marks of the nails belonging to his death on the cross that made him recognizable. The risen Christ was the same Jesus of Nazareth crucified under Pontius Pilate on a Roman cross and no other. He that was raised was totally consistent with he who died. Yet this same Jesus was also transformed.

As the first fruits of the resurrection of the dead, our resurrection hope is patterned after Jesus Christ's own resurrection. This includes all that makes us a unique, unrepeatable person--all our history, all our experiences, all that comprises who we are and who might be. Jurgen Moltmann describes it this way: "Everything that has put its mark on this life remains eternally. Otherwise we should be unable to recognize ourselves in eternal life" (The Coming of God, 84-85).

But the resurrection of Jesus Christ was a transforming and healing resurrection. Jesus bore scars. Jesus bore the marks of healing, restoration, and transformation. Just as Jesus was recognized by his marks, "we too will still be recognizable from the configuration of our truly lived life. Just as his crucified body was transfigured in the glory of God through his resurrection from the dead, so too the Gestalt of our truly lived lives will be brought back, transfigured, and redeemed for God's kingdom" (85).

Philosophers and theologians often distinguish between diachronic and synchronic phenomenon. Synchronic analysis addresses an event from one moment in time. Diachronic analysis regards developments throughout time. Keeping this distinction in mind, resurrection concerns our diachronic self. In God's future, and thereby our future, nothing is lost to God. It is reclaimed and restored. It is made new and yet we remain wholly ourselves. I remain I and no other. You remain you and no other.

To me this matters. It matters greatly. It matters to me because I miss the dead. I miss those who died violently. I miss those who died in womb. I miss those who died from excruciating illness. I miss those who died naturally. More so, I have faith in the resurrected Jesus and corresponding hope for our future in light of that same resurrection. In thinking of resurrection diachronically, neither who they were or who they would have been is lost. He or she remains present to God and is transformed and glorified out of the finality of death.

Going back once more to Moltmann:

To be raised to eternal life means that nothing has ever been lost for God--not the pains of life, and not its moments of happiness. Men and women will find again with God not only the final moment, but their whole history--but as the reconciled, the rectified and healed and completed history of their whole lives. What is experienced in this life as grace will be consummated in glory" (70-71).