I'll show you mine if you show me yours

This week I opened a magazine and spotted an interesting competition. Take a picture of a scar, explain how you got it and be in for a thousand bucks if your story is the most interesting. Sounds like fun. I considered it briefly before deciding that none of my scars are in any fit position for public photography. But it got me thinking…by and large people are always keen to talk about medical mishaps, dental issues and scars. Personally, I don’t especially gain any pleasure from hearing all the ins and outs on the removal of ingrown toenails or root canals but I must admit that I do find disfigurement a little more intriguing. I’m not big on carbuncles oozing pus or anything too messy but when my mum’s friend had a leg operation, I found the titanic staples running up her limb horrifically breathtaking.

My friend Smiley (I’m really going to have to think of a better name for her but she really does have the most terrific smile) had one of those pacemaker thingees fitted not so long ago which was good news on two counts. Firstly because she is now keeping much better health and isn’t scaring us with her dizzy spells any more, and secondly because she has the coolest scar on her chest. Naturally she’d happily flash it around for anyone who would look and considering she has amazing cleavage, plenty of people have been willing to have a squiz at it. Not to mention that being partially bionic is really cool.

Scars are undeniably worth taking a look at and I would say that a competition in their honour is long overdue. I’m looking forward to seeing some real doozies and reading some grisly details about how they came about. I don’t think it would be fair for Jesus to enter the competition though because He would win hands down and it’s only right that He gives someone else a shot at that thousand bucks. Those scars on His hands, His feet, His head and His side have a story behind them that will outdo any kind of misadventure or surgery that I can think of. It even beats the time I tried to express my cat’s bladder after she’d had an accident. There was a lot of blood that day – mine.

It seems to me that Jesus is holding His hands out for anyone who wants to take a look. He held them out when His disciple Thomas doubted that He was back in the land of the living. He’s been inviting us to come in for a closer look and to listen to His story ever since. And He's very interested in taking a look at the scars we might be carrying, including the ones on our hearts. Any nasty infections, any hurts, He's willing to take them from us and add them to His own.  All He's asking from us is that we come, look at His hands and listen to His story.  How can I resist!

Incidentally, there’s nothing wrong with my cat’s bladder now. As I sit here with my daughter’s dinky e-book I can smell something very funky nearby. There is definitely a puddle on the carpet in the proximity of where I’m sitting but I’m not sure where…