In 1975 Wayne Hilliard penned a magnificent song titled, Beautiful Scars. The song starts with the ugly descriptions of what happened to Jesus as the angry mob crucified the only begotten Son of God.
His hands were pierced with seven inch spikes, His feet were crossed and the same type of nail was driven through His feet. His side was pierced with a spear, and on His head they placed a crown of thorns. What a bloody, gruesome sight this had to be. How could anything like this ever be seen as beautiful? Let me just say that perspective sets everything in order.
In my heyday, in high school, the love of my life was playing football. It started as a freshman in Jr High School. I weighed 160 pounds and thought I was something as I was the starting center. My sophomore year moved me to high school where I hadn’t grown as much as some of the guys, not to mention that the football players from all the other Jr Highs were there too. I slipped down to second string. It was disheartening, but I still saw some playing time. But my junior year I had only gained five pounds and now at 165 pounds I was playing third string and I saw very little playing time. Instead of quitting, somehow, this deep settled dream of mine ignited a determination inside me and I worked very hard. I lifted weights everyday, I ate everything I could to help me gain weight. In my senior year, I was a muscular 180 pounds and I was just looking for guys bigger than me to hit, so I could prove to the coaches that I was the man for the center position. Sure enough, I made first string that year.
In one of my games, I was blocking this big defensive lineman and as I was blocking him, he suddenly turned around and as he did I fell off to the ground only to have his heel kick me in my chin. Oh, it hurt, but it left a nasty old scar. Now if you were to see this scar of mine, you would say it was ugly, but to me, because I was doing what I dreamed of doing, that scar is beautiful to me. I am so proud of it. You see, perspective is everything.
To the world, those marks that left scars on Jesus, are ugly and unsightly, but to the person that realizes the price that Jesus paid with those scars was the price that bought salvation for us. The stripes that He took on His back, the nails that He took in His hands and feet, the crown of thorns that tore into the flesh of His head, all of that was part of the ransom to buy me eternal life. So, while those scars are ugly to people who don’t understand what they represent, they are beautiful to me. Those scars were taken for me by the Savior of the world. Those scars will never be ugly to me or to anyone who has accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, no, they will always be beautiful scars to me.
If you don’t know this Jesus who gave His life that you might have eternal life, then I want to tell you that if you will simply call out to God, ask Him to forgive you of your sins, then He will give you this eternal life, and you too will see that the scars that Jesus took are truly beautiful scars.
Deon Unthank
