When man disobeyed God, man was wounded by sin; and when man was alienated from God, God was wounded by man’s separation from Him. A once harmonious communion between God and man was wounded by man’s original sin; and this situation needs to be reconciled by Someone who will stand as a mediator who both belongs to God and to man. He is the Someone who would understand the wounded situation between God and man. The Someone who would sacrifice because of His deep love between the two wounded parties.
God gave man time to understand his wounded situation. He saw how man coped-up with his woundedness. Wherein, through the ages, man’s woundedness remained unhealed. As an entire humanity, he cannot fully grasp the meaning of his woundedness which is deeply rooted from his broken relationship with his Creator. Without God, man feels so lonely that’s why he clings to worldly things instead—power and addiction to vises. This separation from God, as time goes by, made also man to be separated from his neighbor—through human conflicts brought by man’s selfish desire to feed his woundedness with things that he thought that would quench it.
With this woundedness, the world is then divided between a handful of powerful and those who are not. There is no peace…because of greed, there is no harmony among creations-- for the tyrants gluttonously wanted to have more for them so they resolved to war every now and then. For the powerless, there is nothing left. Those who are powerless usually die of hunger and disease. The powerless, who are the poor, are usually the victim of these handful and powerful oppressors. The powerful became more wounded because they are continuously sinning, while the poor ones also became more wounded for being continuously exploited.
With this man’s hopeless situation, God is further wounded. Man, as an entire humanity, cannot redeem himself in his wounded situation, so God send His Son, Jesus, to heal the woundedness of man. He is the Someone who could reconcile the wounded relationship between God and man. Because, as uios (Son) of God, he also feels the woundedness of the Father. Jesus also feels the very deep longing of God to His most beloved creation, who is man. And through Jesus’ incarnation, he also shared man’s dilemma of being man… wherein he embraced totally the weakness of being a man through His kenosis (self-emptying). As man, Jesus was also tempted by the devil, but unlike Adam, he prevailed. Through his earthly ministry he invited everyone to conversion … sinners and saint, poor and the rich, healthy and weak… all for the sake of the Kingdom of God. He became their healer from being wounded by sins. He commanded them with great love and compassion: “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.” … “Stand up, take your bed, and go to your home.” (Matthew 9:2,6)
The only thing that Jesus did not embrace was man’s woundedness by being sinful. But man’s sinfulness wounded Jesus when He was nailed on the cross. On the cross, love triumphed over sin. The love of Jesus to obey the will of the Father and his love for humanity has healed the woundedness that separated God and man. The wounds of Jesus on the cross has totally healed the wounded humanity by being forgiven for their sins. It has healed the woundedness of God for His longing to His most beloved once alienated creations due to sin because they are now made adopted tekne (children) through His Son, Jesus Christ. Through the wounds of Jesus on the cross, man is reunited once again in communion with his ever loving Creator.
Truly, Jesus is a wounded-healer.
Br. Dennis DC. Marquez, sSSS
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