Redemption Does Not Erase the Stories Our Bodies Carry
Redemption Does Not Erase the Stories Our Bodies Carry
Christian hope is sometimes described as an escape from the body, a future in which injury, disability, and painful history disappear. For people whose bodies carry marks, redemption can then sound like the erasure of their lives. The risen Jesus offers a richer hope: his body was transformed, yet the marks of the cross still identified him.
Thomas was absent when the risen Jesus first appeared to the disciples. When the others said they had seen the Lord, he refused to believe until he saw for himself. A week later, Jesus told him, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side” (John 20:27). Jesus had conquered death, yet he did not hide the marks of the cross. The risen Lord was the same Jesus who had been crucified.
Thomas answered, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28). The wounds did more than confirm Jesus’ identity. They led Thomas to worship the Lord who had passed through death and defeated it. We worship this wounded, risen Christ, who lives and reigns.
Revelation presents the same truth through apocalyptic imagery. John sees “a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing at the center of the throne” (Revelation 5:6). This is not an anatomical description. The victorious Christ remains the Lamb who was slain. His resurrection glory is inseparable from the love revealed at the cross.
These passages lead me to consider my own body. In 2004, a snowboarding accident left me with a C5 spinal cord injury. I expected to walk out of Craig Hospital within three months. I decided to try Christianity for one year and leave the faith if God did not heal me. When that year passed, I extended the deadline to three years.
Three years later, my body was still paralyzed. Yet something within me had changed. The deadline I had set for God had passed, but I was still following Jesus from my wheelchair.
Nearly twenty-two years later, I still cannot walk or move my fingers. Recurring infections and chronic pain continue. I will not romanticize them. Pain remains painful, dependence can be exhausting, and loss must be grieved honestly. I still pray for healing.
Yet the absence of physical healing has not meant the absence of God. Jesus met me in a life I once thought I could never accept and taught me to live in his presence. Even when I tried to let go, he fulfilled this promise: “I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10). My body remains paralyzed, but Christ has not left me. I am still wheeling with him.
Christ’s redemptive wounds must not be equated with disability. The cross is the unique saving work of the Son of God. Disability does not redeem us, and suffering does not automatically make us holy. Life with a disability can hold calling, community, and joy alongside pain, loss, discrimination, and barriers that should be removed. Christian hope does not require us to call every hardship a gift.
Nor do Jesus’ wounds prove that every present impairment will remain unchanged in the resurrection. Paul writes, “The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable” and “it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory” (1 Corinthians 15:42–43). Scripture promises transformation and victory over death without explaining what will become of every disability or bodily feature. God raises us without discarding who we are or the lives we have lived.
People with disabilities understand their bodies in different ways. Some consider disability an important part of their identity; others long for relief from pain or limitation. Gratitude and lament can coexist. The church should not impose one understanding on everyone. We can trust God to know, love, and fully renew each person.
This hope shapes how we regard disabled lives today. Too often, people with disabilities are treated as though they are waiting for their real lives to begin. Their testimonies appear unfinished until healing occurs, tying dignity to a future without disability. But God does not wait for my body to change before loving and calling me. As a man in a wheelchair, I am already loved, called, and united to Christ. My dignity does not depend on walking again, and my witness does not wait for my fingers to move.
The same truth should shape the church. Congregations that see disabled people mainly as unfinished healing projects can overlook their gifts, callings, and testimony. Prayer for healing rightly belongs in the church’s life. The church must also nurture friendship and endurance and ensure that people with disabilities can participate, serve, lead, and grow as disciples. Resurrection hope honors disabled bodies today.
We often imagine restoration as a return to an earlier condition. For me, that would mean recovering the body I had before my accident. Resurrection is not a rewind. God is bringing creation to its promised completion in Christ. Healing may restore health in this life, and we rightly thank God for it. Resurrection brings the final defeat of corruption, suffering, and death.
The wounds of the risen Christ declare that our wounds will not have the final word. They also testify that a life marked by suffering is neither meaningless nor disposable. In Christ, what has been broken can be redeemed without denying the pain or erasing what happened. The God who will one day renew my body completely is already holding me faithfully today.