All Wounded People

Isaiah 53:1-5

Who can believe what we have heard,
    and for whose sake has the Lord’s arm been revealed?
He grew up like a young plant before us,
    like a root from dry ground.
He possessed no splendid form for us to see,
    no desirable appearance.
He was despised and avoided by others;
    a man who suffered, who knew sickness well.
Like someone from whom people hid their faces,
    he was despised, and we didn’t think about him.
It was certainly our sickness that he carried,
    and our sufferings that he bore,
    but we thought him afflicted,
    struck down by God and tormented.
He was pierced because of our rebellions
    and crushed because of our crimes.
    He bore the punishment that made us whole;
    by his wounds we are healed.

I had an odd experience last week. I watched a documentary about a particular Christian movement that was popular with teenagers about 20 years ago. It was a movement that I was part of, and it was an experience that left me with a lot of scars. The documentary brought up so many old hurts and emotions that I thought that I had dealt with…and yet here they were again sending me into a panic attack on a Wednesday evening. 

The next day, I felt the need to talk about it, so I uploaded a short video talking about the experience to social media. I was surprised by the response people had to it. The number of folks commenting and sharing their similar experiences and similar hurts was both heartbreaking and cathartic. By offering up some of my own pain, space was created for others to do the same. Before we knew it, we had created a community of care and support where people who had experienced similar harms were working with others to walk them through their own pain. 

It reminded me of an insight from Dutch Catholic priest Fr. Henri Nouwen: “Nobody escapes being wounded. We are all wounded people, whether physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually. The main question is not 'How can we hide our wounds?' so we don't have to be embarrassed, but 'How can we put our woundedness in the service of others?' When our wounds cease to be a source of shame and become a source of healing, we have become wounded healers. Jesus is God’s wounded healer: through his wounds we are healed. Jesus’ suffering and death brought joy and life. His humiliation brought glory; his rejection brought a community of love. As followers of Jesus, we can also allow our wounds to bring healing to others.”

Rev. Ryan Young