Wounds that heal

…with his wounds we are healed. Isaiah 53:5b

Wounds that heal. Scars that point the way to restoration.

This week I talked to Jameson White. Jameson works on our staff in Fresno, California. A ministry partner and colleague of his is Ron Giovanetti, who serves with YFC as a chaplain in a local Juvenile Detention Center. These men are friends, coworkers, and brothers in Christ.

Jameson is a husband and father of a two-year-old. Ron is a husband, father of four and grandfather of 10.

Ron is sick. A liver that’s failing. Life that is slipping away.

Jameson is healthy, vibrant, strong… and a donor match for a live liver transplant to Ron.

On Monday, Jameson will voluntarily step into the gap between life and death for Ron. He will give a portion of his healthy liver to replace a diseased liver. No coercion. Just the powerful compelling love of Christ. Jameson feels called to this.

Jameson understands that there are risks. Obvious surgical risks. Six hours in an operating room underscores the magnitude of the risk, yet compassion and calling have tipped the scale in Ron’s direction. A large incision under the rib cage will be a daily reminder of the price of love, of the cost of courage, of the joy of obedience.

But without a scar there is no hope. Without a wound Ron will die.

Yet in the midst of the highly publicized procedure, Jameson voluntarily repositions the spotlight to the wounds of Jesus. The voluntary act of compassion and sacrifice that rescued us; an act that saved us.

The scars; hands, feet, side, back… are the markers to freedom and hope. Without His wounds we die. Without His sacrifice we’re hopeless.

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

Jameson is living John 15:13 for Ron. Jesus lived it for us all.

Voluntarily. Willingly. Courageously. Lovingly.

Wounds that heal.