Easter Meditation: Beautiful Bruises

A bruise on His heel. That was God’s prophetic description of Christ’s suffering at  the cross, spoken at the beginning of time (see Genesis 3:15).

After reading detailed descriptions of what Jesus suffered both before and during the crucifixion, it’s hard to think of His wounds as a bruise on His heel. Why would God, the loving Father, reach that conclusion?

Because Jesus didn’t stay dead. As one pastor said this morning at an Easter sunrise service, Jesus got up! He wasn’t crushed. He crushed the head of the enemy—not the heel—when He arose.

Jesus, now in heaven, still bears the scars of His wounding, my punishment. Maybe, from afar, they look like bruises. Those scars will be one of the most beautiful sights I see when I get to heaven because they are marks of love for me.

But at the time of His death, He was too marred to look at, too disfigured to recognize. Whatever horror, whatever revulsion people felt when they looked at his butchered body, He bore for us. The Message explains it this way: “But the fact is, it was our pains he carried—our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.”

What bruises disfigure your heart? What ugliness makes you ashamed? Take it all humbly to the cross of Jesus. Because He rose from the grave, He can bring life to every dead place in you. He alone can turn wounds into scars, beautifying them with His love and purpose.