Why should our exalted Lord appear in glory with His wounds? The wounds of Jesus are His glories, His jewels, His sacred ornaments. To the eye of the believer, Jesus is altogether lovely. We see Him as the lily of matchless purity, and as the rose crimsoned with His own blood. We behold the beauty of Christ in all His earthly pilgrimage, but there never was such matchless beauty as when He hung upon the cross. There we saw all His beauties in perfection, all His attributes developed, all His love drawn out, all His character expressed.

Beloved, the wounds of Jesus are far fairer in our eyes than all the splendor and pomp of kings. The thorny crown is more than an imperial diadem. It is true that He no longer bears the scepter of reed, but there was even in that ignominy a glory that never flashed from a scepter of gold. Jesus wears the appearance of a slain Lamb as His royal dress in which He wooed our souls and redeemed them by His complete atonement. And these are not only the ornaments of Christ: They are the trophies of His love and of His victory. He has divided the spoil with the strong. He has redeemed for Himself a great multitude that no one can count, and these scars are the memorials of the fight. If Christ loves to retain the thought of His sufferings for His people, then how precious should his wounds be to us!

Behold how every wound of His
A precious balm distils,
Which heals the scars that sin had made,
And cures all mortal ills.
Those wounds are mouths that preach His grace,
The ensigns of His love;
The seals of our expected bliss
In paradise above.