Wounds and Breath

I wonder if you’ve ever received a gift that you’ve had to pretend to like? Maybe a questionable sweater knitted by your great aunt, or a family heirloom you were really hoping would go to someone else. If you’re savvy, sometimes these less-than-desirable gifts can be passed on to someone else who might appreciate them more: the art of re-gifting can be a judicious way of dealing with this problem!

Today’s gospel reading opens on Easter Sunday. The resurrection has taken place and word is beginning to spread, but there is still a prevailing sense of fear and loss. It is now the evening, and I imagine the disciples debating among themselves, locked in their room, what was actually going on and what it all meant. In that space of confusion, I wonder what kind of gift the disciples would have most wanted. A cloak of invisibility perhaps, or a time machine so they could go back and avoid Jesus being killed. But instead Jesus himself appears and gives them two gifts that I doubt they would have asked for. The risen Christ comes, stands among them, and offers his wounds and his breath.

Wounds, and breath. The wounds are interesting. Despite the fact that Jesus appears in the room without the door being opened, Jesus clearly comes to the disciples with a physical form. In Luke’s version of this story, Jesus eats a piece of fish in front of them to reassure them that he is real. His resurrected body is also real enough that it has been marked and changed by what he has experienced. The risen Jesus doesn’t come back shiny and polished, as though Good Friday were merely an unfortunate misunderstanding now safely edited out of the story. He comes as the crucified one, now alive again. His wounds are part of how his friends know him.

Jesus’ hands and side prove that the Jesus who is alive on Easter Sunday is the same Jesus who suffered. His wounds demonstrate that the love of God has gone all the way into death, then returned from it triumphant. It also gently reassures the disciples that their grief, the emotional turmoil they’ve gone through, was real and valid, and that God walked alongside them in it at the same time. So this first gift of his wounds is identifying, reassuring, and theologically significant.

Second, Jesus gives them his breath. I don’t think being breathed on by someone is particularly appealing in most circumstances, especially to us in our post-pandemic world, but on Easter Sunday this is a gift worth being given. In John’s telling of this visitation, Jesus says, “Peace be with you,” and he breathes on them: “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

Here, we are given a moment where Easter resurrection and Pentecost are gathered together. In this action we hear an echo of creation, when God breathed life into the dust and made people in God’s image. The breath of God is how all things come into being, and here in Jesus’ gift of breath, the new church is born. In a room with a closed door, full of scared, bewildered people, Christ breathes new life into his disciples who have touched the edge of despair. This gift is the wounded and risen Christ standing there, giving them peace, giving his Spirit, and sending them into the world as new creations.

Wounds, and breath.

Then, a week later, Thomas is now with the others, and Jesus comes again with the same peace, and the same wounds. None of the gospel accounts mention Thomas actually touching Jesus’ wounds to verify that they are real, but the sight of them is enough. The fact that Jesus is standing in front of him, with the evidence of what has happened, is all that is needed for Thomas’ confession: “My Lord and my God.”

In this recognition of the risen Jesus, the world is reshaped. Our stories are told through a new lens, and our experiences of suffering are viewed in a new light. Jesus’ wounds are not erased by the resurrection, and our own wounded stories are not erased either. Instead they are met by God who embraces us as we are, our God who has travelled through the depths of suffering and death, our God who goes with us to the places where we too have been marked by our experiences.

Then, life is breathed upon us and we are renewed. We see this renewal in our reading from Acts. We see Peter addressing a crowd in Jerusalem, speaking with courage that would have seemed impossible only weeks before. This is Peter who denied Jesus three times. Peter who knew the fear of the locked room. Peter who had experienced his own failure in a deeply public way. And yet now he stands and proclaims that God has raised Jesus from the dead, that death could not hold him, that God has not abandoned the Holy One to the grave.

Peter hasn’t become someone else. He is still himself - impulsive, passionate, and imperfect. But he has been breathed back into life. The Spirit has transformed him, flaws and all, into a bold witness who proclaims hope to all those he was frightened of not so long ago.

And perhaps that is why these two gifts - wounds and breath - matter so much. Because we are not sent as people who have everything figured out. We are not sent as people whose lives are tidy, whose faith is always strong, or whose stories are without struggle. We are sent, like Peter, as people who have been met by Christ in the middle of real life, in fear, in uncertainty, and also in joy and hope. We carry the memory of our own wounds, whatever they may be, but we also carry the gift of knowing Jesus, and his commissioning breath of life given on Easter Sunday.

So this is where we are encouraged to take these gifts Jesus appeared with, and to actively regift them to others. Not because they are things we wish to dispose of, but instead because they are the most precious things to possess, and we are asked to share this wealth. For the story of wounds and breath is one of God’s presence and life. Through these gifts we become people who can draw alongside others, who can acknowledge pain but look to hope, who can bring peace into anxious spaces, and breathe hope into situations that might feel forsaken. This is how the risen Christ continues his work in the world today, through us, the ordinary people of 2026 who alongside the disciples, have also received these gifts, and who can, with the help of the Holy Spirit, pass them on to someone else too.

Wounds, and breath. Presence in all things, and Easter life given anew.

As we dwell in this Easter season, remember that Jesus still comes into locked rooms and locked hearts. That he still meets us where we are, as who we are, shows us love that has travelled through suffering and come out the other side, and still breathes the Spirit upon us.

Every Sunday our final commission is to go in peace to love and serve the Lord - to leave this place as people shaped by those Easter gifts, for Christ is alive and among us every day. He is risen indeed, alleluia!

Amen.

Acts 2:14a,22-32; John 20:19-31