Behold the Wounds!

Alma and Amulek both testified that our resurrected bodies will be flawless: “Every thing shall be restored to its perfect frame,” they both said, and “there shall not so much as a hair of their heads be lost” (Alma 11:44, Alma 40:23). But Jesus was resurrected with His wounds still in place.

Luke tells us that when Jesus first appeared to the apostles, He reassured them by saying, “Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Handle me and see” (Luke 24:39). John adds that when Thomas saw Him, the Savior said, “Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side” (John 20:27).

When Jesus appeared on the American continent shortly afterward, He extended the same invitation to a large number of people gathered at the temple:

Arise and come forth unto me, that ye may thrust your hands into my side, and also that ye may feel the prints of the nails in my hands and in my feet, that ye may know that I am the God of Israel, and the God of the whole earth, and have been slain for the sins of the world.

3 Nephi 11:14

The wounds in His otherwise perfect and immortal body fulfill at least two purposes:

1. They served as evidence for His disciples who had seen Him die that it was really Him.
2. They provide a powerful symbol for all of us of the pain He suffered willingly on our behalf.

“Behold the wounds which pierced my side, and also the prints of the nails in my hands and feet,” said the Savior to Oliver Cowdery in 1829 (Doctrine and Covenants 6:37). I don’t think Oliver was physically in the Savior’s presence when he heard those words. I don’t think he actually saw and touched Jesus at that time. I think Jesus wanted Oliver to remember the significance of those symbols of His love.

Elder Bruce R. McConkie believed that the experience of the apostles in Jerusalem and of the Nephites and Lamanites in Bountiful can be ours as well. About two weeks before his death, he testified:

I am one of his witnesses, and in a coming day I shall feel the nail marks in his hands and in his feet and shall wet his feet with my tears. But I shall not know any better then than I know now that he is God’s Almighty Son, that he is our Savior and Redeemer, and that salvation comes in and through his atoning blood and in no other way.

“The Purifying Power of Gethsemane,” General Conference, April 1985

The hymn “Behold the Wounds in Jesus’ Hands” by John V. Pearson and David R. Naylor beautifully and simply affirms this principle: “Behold the wounds in Jesus’ hands, the marks upon His side. Then ponder whom He meant to save when on the cross He died.” Here is a performance of this hymn by a choir from Brigham Young University:

Today, I will remember the wounds in the Savior’s resurrected body. I will be grateful for His willingness to suffer on my behalf and for the tangible symbols of that suffering which are part of Him even today.