"Ecce homo" means "Behold the man." They are Pontius Pilate's words' when Jesus was judged by Rome. In today's Gospel, Jesus asks us to behold his wounds. Why?
Many years ago I was on my way to an Eagle’s concert with my brother, his wife and their friends, Charlie and his wife Dee, a lapsed Catholic. While traveling to Phoenix in the car, Dee began to explain to me why she was no longer a Catholic, but that she was a believer in God. She explained that the God of the Catholic church was a judgmental God, harsh and unforgiving. The God she believed in was love and wanted people to come to him. The God of the Catholic church, she believed, was a God that laid guilt on people; a God that thrived on shame and humiliation. Her God was a God that no one could feel shame before. Although, the Church of Dee has no established church location, I think it is an increasing large church in our community.
What God did Peter and John preach? Peter and John healed a crippled man and restored him, happily, to his friends and family. Peter began his preaching with a demonstration and a teaching about grace. Then he began to talk about the God who blessed his servant Jesus and raised him from the dead. That God is "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus…” Acts 3
Notice that Peter identified God as the God of the people of Israel. Why did he have to say that? Then as now, there were hundreds of gods. The gods of the Roman Empire delivered, as does Dee’s god, whatever you want. But the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was not created in our image. The God that gave the law and the Ten Commandments, the God that created the world, the God that saved Noah and lead Moses and the people from slavery is the Father of Christ. He is the God of the prophets Isaiah, Ezekiel and Jeremiah and all the rest. He is not a God that we created for ourselves, but the God that created us and made himself known to us.
There was an early Christian sect, the Marcionites, who wanted to exclude the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob from the Bible by excluding the Old Testament. They claimed that the Hebrew God was primitive, harsh and judgmental, just as Dee believes. Peter and John don't give us that out. They identify the God of the Old Testament as the very God who raised Jesus from the dead. How do you put the God that gave the Ten Commandments and judges together with Jesus as God?
Are Peter and John being judgmental? Peter then takes a turn that would drive Dee nuts. Peter accused the crowd of murdering the Son of God. You “handed over and denied Jesus, the son of the God” to the Roman procurator and forced his death. No one wants to be accused of sin, but when we lose sight of sin, we lose sight of Christianity.
Peter pushed his point. He told the people ‘you denied the holy one and requested a murderer. You put to death the Lord of life.” That is judgmental; the greatest sin an American can commit, if it is sin at all. The only sin you can accuse another person of in our time is being judgmental. Peter and John ask, if we don’t sin, if the fault is not mine, why do we need the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? Someone put those wounds in Christ's body.
Is anyone responsible for the wounds in Jesus’ hands? The Gospel of Luke presents for all to see the God proclaimed by Peter and John. In Luke’s Gospel the disciples from Emmaus told their story about encountering the Risen Lord on the way to Emmaus and breaking bread with him. Then, the Lord appeared to them all and Jesus said “peace be with you.” Jesus showed them his wounds. Someone put those wounds there. When we say, we don’t sin, Jesus reminds us of his wounds. When we deny the part we play in putting those wounds on his hands, feet and side, then we have no part in him. If we do not wound God and others, we don’t need to repent, to change anything. If we don’t need to repent, we don’t need forgiveness. If we don’t need forgiveness, we don’t need the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. "Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name.” Lk 24
The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is offensive to some, loved by others The god of the Church of Dee sounds pretty unobjectionable. Mother Theresa of Calcutta and Charlie Manson have nothing to fear from him. He doesn’t require anything of us other than we be nice to each other and if we aren’t, well, we are only human. The church of Dee preaches a God without wrath who brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross." H. Richard Niebuhr. That is not the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as proclaimed by Peter and John. Someone put those wounds in Christ. Peter and John preached, "Repent and believe" if you want any part of him.