The following are excerpts from a sermon given at WBB on January 31 by Hannah, a writer, MFA student, and regular participant at GCF.
“In John 20, Jesus has to prove himself wounded. Despite being raised from the dead, he still bears the wounds of crucifixion – the ones Thomas could see and maybe some of the he couldn’t.”
“What does it mean that Jesus was still injured after being resurrected? After ascending into heaven? It means he was human. His body was fallible. He was like me and you. Able-bodiedness is only temporary. If you’re not disabled now, you will either become disabled or die first. Jesus did both.”
“What I take from this passage [John 20], from Jesus as a Disabled God, is that I don’t need to be healed to be forgiven. I do not need to be healed to be liberated. I am not a symbol of salvation. I am someone that needs to be liberated by removing barriers.”
“I would challenge you to consider how disabled people around you are invited into leadership and participation… How are we enabled to lead, speak, and offer our gifts, whatever they may be. One way would be to have information available online that details the physical and verbal specifics of worship, and the specificities of accessibility, so we can ‘stroll’ in just as confident to be there as anyone else, knowing that we are in a community that affirms that we do not need to be cured or fixed to be accepted.”
As quoted by Hannah: “In presenting his impaired hands and feet to his startled friends, the resurrected Jesus is revealed as the disabled God. Jesus, the resurrected Savior, calls for his frightened companions to recognize in the marks of impairment their own connection with God, their own salvation. In so doing, this disabled God is also the revealer of a new humanity. The disabled God is not only the One from heaven but the revelation of true personhood, underscoring the reality that full personhood is fully compatible with the experience of disability.” Nancy L Eisland, The Disabled God (100)
Cross-posted on our Instagram account.