How many wounds did Jesus have?' Stop and count them. There were six:

I .) His ankles, where the nails were driven.

2. ) His palms, where the nails pierced through.

3.) His brow, where the crown of thorns was placed.

4.) His side, where the spear slashed

5.) His back, where the whip lashed.

That adds up to five. But the sixth wound was the hidden wound. It was the wound in the heart, placed there by a kiss of one of His own disciples.

The hidden wound, I submit, was the most painful of them all. We all have them, don't we? We may disguise them behind a smile, behind our guard. But if we really searched our lives and exposed ourselves, we'd find that every person has a secret pain, an intimate agony, a very private hurt, an isolated, unrevealed, unexposed wound.

The hidden wounds of life. That's what I want to share with you this morning. How do we get them? How do we avoid them? How do we keep from inflicting them on others? How do we handle them if we have them?

The hidden wounds. Where do we get them? Society inflicts hidden wounds on us. Some of you have been the victims of racial prejudice. Or some of you have been the victims of another form of ethnic prejudice.

Society inflicts these wounds on us. Sometimes, the family inflicts them. Maybe that's when they hurt the most. A father, a mother, a sister, a brother, a child a husband a wife inflicting a wound on those that are the closest to them. Some of you today, if I touched the right spot, would weep because of what a father did or a mother, or a child to you.

I will never forget a certain young teenage girl. The hidden wound that she carried was, at that time an incurable disease. She got it when she was in the womb of her mother who was a most disgraceful woman. Today, this girl carries this hidden wound this incurable disease.

Society inflicts them. Families inflict them. We inflict a lot of them on ourselves. We said something crude and thoughtless, and we wounded somebody else. Or we're hurt too quickly. We react too negatively. We took them much too seriously. We read too much into the silence.

I have to say this, religion has also been responsible for many hidden wounds. Even the Christian church has been responsible for causing a lot of hidden wounds in people. Someone blundered made a mistake. Many of you know what I'm saying, especially if you have had an unavoidable divorce. There was nothing you could do to bring back your spouse. Divorce was inevitable. Yet you were treated as if you'd committed an unpardonable sin.

I think one of the most beautiful passages of the Bible was when Jesus encountered the woman who had been caught in adultery. The church was about to stone her. Then Jesus stepped up and said "Let him that is without sin cast the first stone."

This incident is not surprising when you look at Christ's first sermon. In it Jesus said, "I have come to heal the broken hearted."

When skin is broken you can see it. The scar is visible. But a broken heart, can be easily covered up in several clever little ways.

The question is, "How do these wounds come to us?" How did Jesus get his wounds? What were the weapons that inflicted His painful scars? They were: a nail, a spear, a whip, and a kiss. Who would have thought that a gesture of love, such as a kiss, could kill?

The hidden wounds that you carry with you today, those private hurts that you can't talk about, what were the tools that inflicted this wound in your heart?

The tools are often as gentle and deceiving as the kiss that crucified our Lord. They're words, silence, body language, looks. Some one you loved turned their back on you. They couldn't return your gaze and that hurt. Maybe it was a snub. Probably they passed you by. You never got an invitation. You were rebuffed.

Words. Body language. Silence. Looks. These are the horrible weapons that inflict hidden wounds in human hearts. The next question, and it is the most important of all is, "What do we do with them? How do we handle them?"

Handle them right or they can literally drive you to drink. More than one person is an alcoholic because of a hidden wound. More than one person is growing old with tension lines, tough and cold because of a hidden wound.

How do you handle them? First of all, don't nurse them. There are people that I've met and so have you. They keep nursing their wounds. They still remember how their mother treated them. What their father said to them. How their first husband or first wife treated them. Thirty years later they still harbor the wound. They nurse it. It's a neurotic, negative reaction.

Don't nurse them. Don't curse them. In other words, don't let it make you a bitter person. Don't become angry at God or the person who hurt you so deeply. To curse the person that snubbed you or insulted you will not help one bit. It will only deepen the scar and infect the wound with negativity that will only hamper the healing process.

So, don't nurse them. That won t help. Don't curse them. That won't help, either. Don't rehearse them. Try to forget them. Remember, you can't forget it if you keep talking about it all the time.

One of the great men on the staff of the church here for thirty years was a minister named Dr. Henry Poppin. Dr. Poppin was a prisoner in solitary confinement for many months in a little town in China when the Communists took over. The treatment he received was abysmal. It was tragic. It was horrific. It was awful. He escaped by a miracle. Most of the other missionaries were killed on sight.

When he was released he was an emotionally wounded man. He found healing for that wound, largely through a doctor who said, "Don't talk about it. Just don't talk about it.'' Don't nurse the wound. Don't curse the wound. Don't keep rehearsing the wounds. What then should you do? Immerse them. Drown them in a life of noble service.

I've been in this ministry for thirty years. And during those early years collected my share of hidden wounds, too. And I remember when I had a real personal problem with someone. It was hurting me terribly. I didn't know how to handle it.

But my wife always had a solution. She'd say, " I think you need to visit that new member of the church who's in the hospital." Or she'd suggest that I call a widow who was having difficulties in adjusting to her recent loss.

So I went out to the hospitals and I called on people. I immersed myself as a pastor in the hearts of people who were hurting. In the process, my little hidden wound was literally drowned to death by the good feelings I received from helping others. Psalm 37 says, " Fret not yourself because of evildoers. Trust in the Lord and do good."

How do you handle the hidden wounds? Don't nurse them. Don't curse them. Don't rehearse them. Do immerse them. And finally. reverse them. Turn the negative into a positive.

You can do that when you pause a moment and think about the times when you hurt others. You can turn your negative into a positive when you let it transform you into a more sensitive, compassionate, considerate, thoughtful, merciful, and gracious person.

The poet has said, "In love's service, only broken hearts qualify."

One of the most difficult wounds to heal are those which must remain hidden, must remain a secret. They are the wounds that can't be discussed without criticizing somebody else, tearing them down, telling the truth about them. As a Christian, you can't do that. I can't do that. So, you suffer in silence.

What do you do when you have a wound that you can't discuss? I suggest that you handle the hidden wound the same way Jesus did. You remain silent and trust God. Find a friend you can cling to.

Shakespeare said it, ''When you've found that kind of a friend, grapple him to your side with hoops of steel. Never let go."

Jesus was that kind of a friend. He still is to me. My daughter, Carol, and three of her girlfriends went to see The Glory of Easter, the live dramatic presentation of the last week in Christ's life that we put on every year here in the Crystal Cathedral. They went to a little restaurant for dinner before the performance.

She told me later how their waiter said, Hey, you girls are all dressed up. Where are you going''?

One girl said, "To the theater.''

He said, "It must be The Glory of Easter. Everybody who comes in here is going to The Glory of Easter."

"As a matter of fact," they said, ''That's exactly where we're going"

"Do you have good seats?'' he asked.

Carol popped up. "Oh, yes! I've got connections."

He looked at Carol and said, "Oh, do you know Jesus?"

He meant the actor, of course, but that's not what Carol thought. Carol said, "Jesus and I are best of friends!"

The waiter then understood that Carol was not referring to the actor. He saw her love for Christ, and unable to handle it, moved on.

What do you do with your hidden wounds? Reverse them. Go to Jesus with them. He can heal them. He really can. It might be traumatic, but it will be healing because He understands.

Hidden wounds. God can heal them. He loves you, anyway!

Let Us Pray: Thank You, Lord, that the heart can be healed, the memory of the bitter words can be erased Thank You for creating our minds in such a way that it's possible for the memories to be healed of the negative impacting experiences-the look the word, the touch that was so cutting and so cruel and so hurtful. Jesus, come into lives now with your living love that we may go out treating people tenderly, compassionately, graciously, mercifully, positively, that there may be some beauty in the tough cold world Lord, by grace we've been saved By grace may we be able to save others who today need the healing of Your touch Amen.