Man of Sorrows, Acquainted With Grief

For years now I’ve had the book, The Wounded Healer by Henri Nouwen in my library. A couple weeks ago I finally pulled it off my shelf and started reading it. It’s a short book, just one hundred pages and a bit dated. But it’s still good and applicable and helped me to understand my generation and myself a little bit better. Having just lost my Dad in January it even helped me understand a bit more my relationship with him and the differences there were between how we both viewed the world.

Dad didn't want his picture taken. So Lluvia told him, "But this could be our last photo together." And it was.

But perhaps what I liked even more about the book than the content itself was the painting on the cover. The painting is called Ecce Homo and is a piece of art by Georges Rouault who passed away in 1958, the year after my Dad was born. The painting is mostly done in dull reds, yellows, and browns. Jesus has the crown of thorns on His head and looks downcast, but not in despair. His skin has that olive-skinned middle-eastern quality or the quality of someone who has been much in the sun. But what I love about the painting is that underneath the brown and fleshy colors of Jesus’ face and neck and emanating behind His head you can see brilliant golds and yellows shining through. It’s like Jesus’ glory was opaqued by the mud we’re made from, but that glory is still there for those with eyes to see. It’s a beautiful reminder of who Jesus was. He was fully human, and fully God: neither part diminished by the other. Truly this is still a mystery.

And that’s where the title of the book and its cover come together. Many question where God is when bad things happen. While we don’t have easy answers we do know He came and allowed Himself to be on the receiving end of all that evil. He has entered into it fully. Also, He was tempted in all ways like we were, yet was without sin. Like it says in Hebrews 4:15, He is our high priest able to sympathize with our weaknesses. The evil that exists in this world is on us, not Him, yet He took it upon Himself. He truly is the wounded healer. Where is He when evil happens? He’s right next to us, consoling us, comforting us (2 Corinthians 1:3), helping us move beyond the evil done. It was His blood that was shed for our sins. (Hebrews 9:22) And He faced that most horrible of hurdles, death itself, and overcame it so that one day we too can be raised to eternal life with Him. “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55)

Today the parents of one of the kids who attend our school for kids on the spectrum came to me to explain why they’ve been unable to pay for their child’s enrollment at the school. They have it worked out already, but wanted to explain what had been happening in their lives that put them in this position. The last days of the school year in June, our students’ grandfather had died. They had to travel to Mexico City and ended up spending a lot on the funeral. To top it off, no sooner had they returned than the parent, the son of the deceased, had had an accident at work and his arm was in a cast and was on disability for a couple weeks. I related to him the pain of losing my own father recently and the similarities in the stories were striking. And we commiserated about the fact that since both men did not want to suffer or be in the hospital it seemed that Jesus came and said to them it was time to go. I told them about how my Dad was found, without any apparent pain or struggle etched on his face, just a serene expression. I pray I get more opportunities to share with them. I was able to tell them that if they needed to talk further I was also chaplain at the school and was there if they needed me.

I hope we can all take comfort in the reality behind the paining, Ecce Homo, realizing that there isn’t anything that happens in this world that Jesus doesn’t see. We don’t have easy answers for those things that do happen to us, but we know He is with us, consoling us. “…upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:5) He entered into our reality and has fully taken part in our humanity. He is our Man of sorrows, aquatinted with grief. (Isaiah 53:3)