The Place of Your Wounding Is the Place of Your Healing

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All right. We are here. Third week of Advent again. Advent is the season we call the four weeks leading up to Christmas. So it’s not Christmas yet. And you know, the commercials I heard just yesterday, the radio stations are like, “The 12 Days of Christmas,” which they’re saying is the 12 days leading up to Christmas.

No. Right? No, no, no, no, no.

Don’t buy the lie. And that’s what they want—you—they want you to buy the lie, right? So they are advertising. But the 12 Days of Christmas start on Christmas Day and go to Epiphany, where Jesus is revealed. The wise men come.

And so, we are in the season of Advent, and we see here, to my left, your right, an empty manger because Jesus isn’t here yet. We long for Jesus’ arrival in our lives.

And I love the songs that we sang, because there’s so much longing in those songs. There’s a sense in which we need to hear the love song that is Jesus Christ. But we are too busy to hear it, right? We’re too at war—in our own souls and our own relationships.

In our culture, we long for peace. We long for joy. We long for what God brings. And so this season reminds us that God’s arrival makes all the difference in the world. God’s arrival makes all the difference.

I want to read this passage once again. This is a letter written by John, one of the disciples of Jesus. And he’s writing this letter to people that need to hear—long to hear—like us, long to hear that there’s hope. Long to hear, in the midst of war and strife and tension and chaos, that there’s good news: someone has come.

So he says this:

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.”

We write this—why did he just say all of this? Why is he writing this letter? We write this to make our joy complete.

Can you say complete joy?

Complete joy. Fullness of joy.

John 15:4, Jesus says—he says, “If you remain in me, if you live with me, if you stay with me, if you come near me, and I also am near you, you will bear much fruit.” Right? He says, “Remain in me, and I in you, and you will bear much fruit.” He says, “I am the vine, you are the branches. Remain in me.”

And what’s that fruit? One of the fruit of our relationship with God through Jesus is joy.

Joy.

So here is what I want to proclaim to you, and what this passage is proclaiming—what Advent is proclaiming to you:

In a world of relational isolation, in a world in which we suffer disconnection, in a world where we are separated from families and friends by death, right? By dysfunction—we are proclaiming this:

That the place of your wounding is also the place of your healing.

Jesus is inviting you back home into the healing relationship of joyful connection with God.

The place of your wounding.

At our core, we suffer from a relational woundedness. I would say that sin—what we call sin—is a relational problem. Sin can’t exist outside of relationship. Sin is a fracturing, a disruption of the connection we are meant to have with God, with others, and with creation.

Shalom is perfect relationship wellness—between God, others, and creation. We are meant to live in harmony. We are not created as solo individuals. We don’t exist apart from our relationship with God, with others.

In fact, it’s interesting, right? God creates humanity as a pair, right? To know one another, to be known with God. And God walks in the garden with this human pair.

What’s the context? It’s creation. It’s the animals. And they name the animals. So from the very beginning, what God calls good is this relational environment—this relational ecosystem—in which we are designed to live.

And we know, as we’ve talked several times, that God—the essence of God, the character of God, the nature of God—is relationship: Father, Son, Holy Spirit, right? So God lives in eternal relationship. God is relationship.

That’s why God is love. Because God lives in eternal loving relationship with God’s self and creates people to be invited into that community of love. Fellowship. Connection. Loving relationship.

So what is sin? Why is there woundedness? Why is there internal and external chaos? Why are there wars and rumors of wars? Why is there pain?

Because it’s all a fracturing of the relationship. We were intended to live in a relationship of love. And so we spend our lives aching for that return—a return to relationship.

So this is a beautiful passage. If we go back here, he’s speaking to that which is from the beginning. Who is from the beginning?

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by Him, and through Him nothing that has been made has been made.”

Everything was made by God—this Word.

So we’re referring to Jesus being present—Father, Son, Holy Spirit—at the creation of the world. And so John says, “We’re telling you about the person—the God—who was from the beginning.”

But here’s the crazy thing. We’ve heard this person. We’ve seen this person. We’ve touched this person. And this is what we proclaim to you: the Word of life that we can see, hear, and touch.

This Word of life that was from the beginning, that created the world, that we were meant to be in relationship with, has come all the way to us—in flesh and bone—can be seen, heard, touched, talked to, listened to, and loved, cared for, in conversation.

This is amazing.

The life appeared. We have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you this eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard.

See? Notice the repetition—seen, heard, touched. Seen, heard, touched.

So that—why are they proclaiming this to us? They are proclaiming this to us so that you also may have fellowship with us.

That word “fellowship”—we’re called, well, we used to be called Foothills Fellowship. Now we’re the Foothills Fellowship.

Fellowship is a word for relational connection. It’s a word that we have community, that we live in relationship, that we are a people that live together in shared life and relationship.

So why is he proclaiming this good news? It’s that we would be restored into the relational fellowship that we were created to enjoy, right?

“We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us.”

And guess what? Who’s their fellowship with?

“Our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.”

And this—if we would get this, if we would consent to this truth, if we would respond to this truth—this is the source of joy. This is how we return to joy.

In a world of division, chaos, and war and violence, we return to relationship with one another and with God. And this is joy.

Beautiful, right?

There’s a guy I just found out about. I’m going to try to—his name, he’s from Burundi. “Deogratias,” which is like Latin—Deogratias.

Cool name. It means like “Thanks to God”—Niyizonkiza. Okay? Deogratias Niyizonkiza.

He is from Burundi, and he lived, as a young man, survived the civil war in Burundi. And as a result, as a teenager, he witnessed this unspeakable violence. He lived what we see on the news every day.

He lost friends. He lost family. He witnessed their deaths. And he lost any sense that the world was safe. His body just literally would shake with anxiety. His memories haunted him. His relational world had just been shattered.

Eventually, he escaped to New York City—with nothing. He didn’t have the language. He didn’t have family. He didn’t have a sense of home. He just had trauma, loneliness, memories of death, and kind of a new beginning in New York, in America.

So he was physically free, but he found that the relational wounds of the past came with him. Right? They bound him.

He ended up living on the streets. He struggled to trust anyone. When people showed him kindness, he assumed they meant harm. When strangers spoke to him, he flinched. When help was offered, he received it with suspicion.

Just the trauma that he had experienced—the relational damage—had caused him to distrust and be unable to live in connection, in relationship.

So he kept this emotional distance. He was unable to believe that anyone would actually follow through with what they would say. His brain literally—and we know this from neuroscience—his brain had become rewired by trauma to mistrust anyone.

He was hyper-vigilant, guarded, alone, and unable to rest.

So he’s surrounded in New York City, right? With millions of people—and yet he’s utterly alone because of the wounds of his past.

These wounds had trained his heart not to trust and his body not to receive love.

And I wonder if you can relate to that at some level, right? All of us—maybe we haven’t lived through civil war—but we’ve lived through family civil war, right?

We’ve lived through losing family members through political disagreements or divorce. We’ve lived through losing relationship through the things we’ve done, the things that have been done to us—our parents, our uncles, our aunts—the pain of relational woundedness.

I think all of us are relationally suffering from the wounds inflicted by those we should have been able to trust, those that were supposed to care for us and instead hurt us.

And every time that happens, we withdraw a little bit more, don’t we?

We wonder if we can offer the fullness of ourselves. And we wonder if we can, like, let the fullness of who we are really be known—because we might be rejected. It might hurt too much.

And so in extreme cases, we suffer from attachment disorders, right? Where we will keep people at a distance or even introduce chaos into relationships if they start becoming too good to be true.

We think it is too good to be true, and so we will insert a crisis to protect ourselves—because that’s the way we can control it, at least. Does that make sense?

That’s where we’re at.

I wonder if you sense any of that in your own heart, in your own life.

I want you to know that you were made for joyful connection and attachment to God and other people. That’s what you were made for—joyful connection.

A couple wrote a book—Sid and Jeff Holtzclaw. They wrote a book called Does God Really Like Me? How would you answer that question? Does God really like me? Discovering the God who wants to be with us.

I think all of us here would say, “God loves me.” That’s step number one. But do you believe that God likes you?

That’s a different thing, isn’t it?

God loves me, but He’s kind of disappointed in me. God loves me, but He wishes I would do better. God loves me despite all I’ve done—and there’s always a caveat.

But does God actually like you? Does God enjoy you? Does God see you and smile? Does God delight to see you living your life?

That’s a different question. And that is the key to living a truly joyful life—because joy is about relationship.

Joy—here is one—well, I’ll get ahead of myself there. Never mind. I’ll get there in a minute. Maybe I’ll just skip ahead. Let’s go. I’m going to skip ahead.

Joy is the experience of being with someone who is glad to be with you. Joy is ultimately a relational emotion. All right? Joy is a relational reality.

So joy comes from knowing that you are delighted in and moving forward.

I got to spend some time with my dad this week in Arizona. And it was—I noticed a couple of things. Like, it was pretty cool. It was me and my brother. And he would introduce us—we’re both 6’4″, 6’5″, and he’s not. He’s 5’10” or so. And I think he’s proud of that. He likes to be around, you know, his big boys, you know.

And every time he introduces us, he’s like, “These are my boys. These are my sons.” And I felt this sense like he was proud of us, you know, that he delighted in being with us.

And that felt really good—I’ll tell you that. It made me joyful. It made me feel like, “This is beautiful.” Like, my dad loves us—doesn’t just love us, but likes us. Like, he enjoys being with us. He’s glad to be in our presence. And he’s proud to be here.

And that—that does something, even as a 46-year-old man, right? I need that to move forward in confidence. And that’s what we need as human beings, ultimately, from God: to know that God is glad to be with us and that God sees us and wants other people to know us.

“These are my boys. These are my children. I love them.”

Now, when my dad introduces us like that, he’s not saying, “These are my perfect, sinless boys, and I love them—therefore I love them.” Right?

He knows more than anyone else our dysfunction, our imperfection. And yeah, we’ve hurt his feelings on that trip, right?

But he—he doesn’t just love us. He likes us.

And that’s where the joy can exist.

And so that’s where—go back to the slides here.

We see that this is what we were made for. In fact, there’s not a slide for this—it was Zephaniah 3:17. You may have heard this.

“It says the Lord is in your midst, a mighty one who will save. He will rejoice over you. He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will quiet you by His love. He will exalt over you with loud singing.”

That’s really cool.

So much of Scripture—and for good reason—is about rejoicing over God. Exalting God. Rejoicing over God.

But here we see that, you know, it goes two ways. God rejoices over you. God exalts over you.

And this—it says, “He will quiet you by His love.”

Can we rest on that for a minute?

When you are unsure that you are loved, when you are unsure that you are liked, it creates a restlessness in you, right? An uncertainty. A lack of groundedness. An inner chaos. A lack of peace. An unease.

And so it says:

“He will quiet you by His love. He will exalt over you with loud singing.”

This is where we can receive the peace. We return to joy because God has come to us and says, “I not only love you—I like you. I rejoice over you. I dance over you. I sing over you. You’re okay. Rest. You can be still. You can know.”

It’s all about joy.

Psalm 65:12:

“The grasslands of the wilderness overflow; the hills are clothed with gladness. The meadows are covered with flocks, and the valleys are mantled with grain. They shout for joy and sing.”

Psalm 96:11:

“Let the heavens rejoice. Let the earth be glad. Let the sea resound and all that is in it.”

This is like—again, use your imagination—the whales, the sea creatures, the creatures of the depths, all giving praise to God, rejoicing, dancing. Think dolphins. Dolphins are good, joyful creatures to think about.

Psalm 98:

“Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Burst into jubilant song with music.”

So this is about our life in this world with God. It’s about joyful communion with God, with humanity, with one another—from the beginning. This is Shalom.

This is why we were created—to live in joyful connection with other people. Relational wellness in all directions. This is what we desire. This is what we want. This is what we need: to know that we are wanted, delighted in, seen, and known.

So we are wired for joy. Conditioned for connection.

And again, here it is:

“Joy is the experience of being with someone who is glad to be with you.”

Let’s go back to that story of Deogratias.

Deogratias—he is in New York City, surrounded by millions of people, utterly alone because of the wounds of his past. His heart is trained not to trust anybody. His body is trained not to receive love.

But God doesn’t leave us alone, right? I believe the mission of God is to remind us that we are loved, that we are liked, that we are made for joyful connection with God.

And so, over time, God sends people into his life. An American couple met him, took him in, gave him a place to sleep. They welcomed him to their table. They shared meals. They listened to his story. They helped him go to school.

(Sorry about that, I’ll try to stay still.)

They stayed through his silence. They stayed because someone who isn’t sure they’re safe sometimes is a little dangerous. They lash out. But they stayed—through his silence, through his lashing out, through his fear, through his mistrust, through his trauma.

Other friends came along. He became part of a church—like this. They brought him meals. They showed him compassion. They remained present and patient. Mentors stood with him as he began to rebuild his life, learn the language, get job training.

None of it was fast. None of it was simple. Healing never is. Healing takes time. Learning to trust takes time. Returning to joy takes time.

But slowly, through the steady presence of people in the context of relationship who loved him—liked him—something began to change, bit by bit.

And this is the beautiful thing about the brain. So you know—your brain can get rewired. Your brain can be wired by trauma to mistrust, to actually exhibit—like show signs in your body—that, you know, start to shake when certain people come around or you hear certain phrases.

But those neural pathways can be rewired through healthy connection. And that’s what happened.

The neurological pathways that had been shaped by terror began to learn safety. Where war had taught him to hide, relationships taught him to open up—it was okay. Where trauma taught him to mistrust, love taught him that he could receive. Where fear had trained him to withdraw, belonging taught him that he could step toward others.

And as we saw in Zephaniah 3:17, his heart could be at rest, right? He could be at peace.

And so, he began to experience healing. The place of his woundedness became the place of his healing.

Do you hear that?

He was wounded relationally, and God entered his life relationally through others. The place of his wounding became the place of his healing.

And that’s what’s true of all of us.

God will often—if we were hurt in the context of relationship—guess where He’s going to do His healing?

Not in a cabin by yourself in the woods. Most likely, it’s going to be in the context of a relationship, where you relearn—and that takes risk. That means risk. That’s scary.

But God will heal us at the same place of our wounding.

And this is what happens with this man. And so he begins to heal. He begins to trust. He gets his education.

And guess what he does?

He then returns to the place of his woundedness—ground zero. He goes back to Burundi, and he starts a health clinic. He starts community development efforts. He advocates for vulnerable people.

As a healed person, he moves to the place of his wounding and begins to extend the healing that he had received.

And this is the beauty of God’s Advent toward us. This is the beauty of the healing that restored relationship with God brings. That joy is contagious.

That when we learn that we are in the presence of a God who is glad to be with us, we can move in confidence and relationship with other people and extend that same healing, gladness, and joy.

He became a wounded healer.

And this is the invitation to all of us, right?

We talk about the Advent of God. What we have seen—let’s go back to 1 John 1—what we have seen, what we have heard, what we have touched, we proclaim to you.

God comes to us in relationship—in a human body, with flesh and bone. He enters into community with twelve disciples, with more disciples, men and women. He builds community.

The place of their wounding is the place of their healing. That God comes to us in relationship—in human relationship.

And I imagine—I was thinking about this this morning—why was Jesus so popular? Like, why were people just, you know, attracted to Him? There’s crowds, you can barely move.

I imagine it’s to be in the presence of someone who sees you and loves you and even enjoys you. Have you ever been around a person like that? Like, you’re with them and you just see, “This person—I feel loved. I feel accepted. I feel enjoyed.”

That, I think, was part of Jesus’ charisma. That’s part of His divine presence. And that’s what is ours as we’re filled with the Holy Spirit.

So the place of your wounding is the place of your healing.

Jesus is inviting you back home—into relationship. The healing relationship of joyful connection with God.

I think I’m going to lead us just in a time of stillness for you to connect with God, to tell God that you long to be in joyful connection with Him.

Maybe there’s a sense in which you believe that God does love you, but that He doesn’t like you. This idea of God rejoicing and singing over you, dancing—seems a little ridiculous, right? Not serious enough.

I think I’ll end with this.

You know Peter? He was pretty rash. He messed up a lot. And especially the night Jesus was betrayed, right? Remember this? Jesus had already kind of told Peter, “You know what? Before the rooster crows three times, you will have denied me three times.”

And he says, “No, I will not! I will not!”

But of course it happens. Jesus is arrested. He’s beaten. He’s tortured the night before He’s crucified. Peter—does he? People ask him if he’s been with Jesus. He says, “No, I’ve never seen him. I don’t know who he is.”

He denies Jesus. So it’s a pretty big betrayal. Peter—Peter betrays Jesus.

And I love the first encounter that we’re given—that the disciples and Peter see Jesus after He is risen from the dead, after He’s been crucified.

Peter and a couple of the disciples are fishing, right? And they’re out on a boat. And out in the distance, they look on the shore, and there’s a guy cooking breakfast. And they look and they’re like, “Who is that guy? Looks familiar.”

And they realize—Peter realizes—it’s Jesus. And He’s cooking them breakfast, which is the most relational thing you can do, okay? He’s cooking them breakfast.

And what does Peter do?

Peter, the last time he saw Jesus, he had betrayed Him. He had done exactly the worst thing—the hour of Jesus’ greatest need, he had disowned Him.

But what does Peter do? He throws off his outer garment, and he jumps into the water. He can’t even wait. He can’t wait to be confronted by Jesus. He can’t wait to see Jesus after this moment of betrayal.

I mean, he knows he screwed up. But he can’t wait.

He swims to be restored, to be in relationship with Jesus.

This is joy—even in our imperfection. That we know we are absolutely loved and even liked. Enjoyed.

And so Jesus restores relationship with Peter, and He calls Peter back into mission, back into love, back into fellowship, back into joy.

So the incarnation, which is what we call God becoming human—you know, carne. Out of order, right? It’s “carne.” Meat. Carne. Queso—cheese. “With meat.” So this is God in the flesh.

The incarnation is God’s commitment to heal us at the place of our woundedness—in relationship. Exactly where healing is needed.

So let me give you two minutes of silence as you…

Maybe, right—would you mind playing during this time?

We serve a relational God that has a relational remedy. And that can be scary.

So maybe just use this time. Number one—maybe you need to know that God delights in you. Ask Him that you would—you would start to believe that.

Maybe there’s a relationship that needs healing and mending, and you don’t see that there’s hope for it. Talk to God about that.

God isn’t giving you rules. He’s giving you relationship. Christianity isn’t a set of rules. It’s a person to live life with.

So spend some time with this Person, just for a moment.

…

It’s the plan to sing the song.

…

Jesus, we thank You that You have come to us at the place of our deepest woundedness. That in relationship, You are healing the fractured relationships we have, the trauma that’s inflicted on us.

God, I pray that we would open our lives, open our hearts to see, hear, touch You in our midst.

Would You give us the ability to trust again, to move in joy, and to extend joy to this world?