Philip Yancey offers this insight on the scars of Jesus:
"One detail in the Easter stories has always intrigued me: Why did Jesus keep the scars from His crucifixion? Presumably He could have had any resurrected body He wanted, and yet He chose one identifiable mainly by scars that could be seen and touched. Why?
I believe the story of Easter would be incomplete without those scars on the hands, the feet, the side of Jesus. When human beings fantasize, we dream of pearly straight teeth and wrinkle-free skin and sexy ideal shapes. We dream of an unnatural state: the perfect body. But for Jesus, being confined in a skeleton and human skin was the unnatural state. The scars are, to Him, an emblem of life on our planet, a permanent reminder of those days of confinement and suffering."
Immediately brings to my aging grey matter one of my favorite songs: