“Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see….” Luke 24:39
And they began bringing children to Him, so that He might touch them…. And He took them in His arms and began blessing them, laying His hands upon them. Mark 10:13,16
Then Jesus, moved with compassion, stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him, “I am willing; be cleansed.”
Mark 1:41
I am filled with wonder upon seeing heaven’s splendor,
The radiant moon and stars, hung by Your fingers;
As an artist adds colors and hues to the palette,
You create moments of glory at dawn and sunset.
You formed me in the secret, hidden place,
Woven with marvelous design, purpose and grace.
I am upheld and encircled with loving bands,
By Your mighty, victorious, righteous right Hand.
Oh, to see those scarred Hands, full of tender love;
That moment I yearn for, and always dream of—
I will clasp that perfect Hand to walk through Paradise,
Which healed my soul, as all my longings are realized.
chorus:
In the kindness of Your Hands, a child finds solace;
By the touch of Your Hands, the blind can now see;
In the power of Your Hands, the deaf hear Your promise;
By the piercing of Your Hands, Sovereign grace saved me.
Jesus, my true Shepherd, I hear Your voice calling;
My keeper, my protector, always providing—
Stretching forth Your willing arms with great compassion;
Gently wiping every tear from all creation.
Your Hands
C.A. TAYLOR
The Bible is signally distinguished for this, that with a message from God it reaches the human heart, but not less remarkable is the attention which it directs to the human hands. In our Western speech, with its leaning towards abstraction, we speak of character and its outflow in conduct; but in the Eastern speech, which has always been pictorial, men spoke of the heart and its witness in the hands. “Who shall ascend into the hill of God? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart.” It is conduct incarnate, the sign of the active life. It is the organ through which is sketched, as on a screen, the thought that is singing and surging in the heart.
Now if that be true of every human hand, it will be very especially true of the hands of Christ. He is always saying to us ‘Behold my heart’: but in the same voice He says, ‘Behold my hands.’ What are these hands? What do they signify?
They are hands of brotherhood—When Jesus came into Peter’s house, we read, He saw his wife’s mother laid and sick of a fever. And what did He do? He put out His hand and touched her, and she arose and ministered to them all. When He was in Bethsaida they brought a blind man to Him, beseeching Him that He would give him his sight again. And what did He do? He took the blind man by the hand, and hand in hand they left the town together. And the world will never forget that scene in Nain, when Jesus met the sad procession to the grave, and moved with compassion put forth His hand, and touched the bier. In all these cases, and in a hundred others, what men recognized in the touch was brotherhood. Christ came alongside of suffering and sorrow, brought Himself into living and actual touch with it.
They are hands of power.—When Jesus went back, the second time to Nazareth, do you remember what the villagers said about Him? ‘What wisdom is this that is given Him,’ they said, ‘that even such mighty works are wrought by His hands.’ They had seen these hands busy at carpentering once, but now there was a power in their touch that baffled them. And then we turn to the Gospel of St. John, where our Saviour Himself is speaking of His sheep: and He says, ‘I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand.’ Behold His hands, then, for they are hands of power: they are powerful to do and powerful to keep.
They are hands of tenderness. —Of all the exquisite pictures in the gospel there is none more exquisite than the scene when ‘the mothers of Salem their children brought to Jesus.’ With a mother’s instinct for a man who was really good they wished their children to be blessed by Him. And the disciples would have kept the children off: Christ was too busy with great affairs to heed an infant. They had never guessed yet that the Kingdom of Heaven was mirrored for Jesus in these childish eyes. Then Jesus drew the little children to Him, and blessed them; but He did more than that. It had sunk deep into the memories of the Evangelists that in blessing them He laid His hand upon them. It was an act of the sweetest and most natural tenderness, the gentle and caressing touch of love. When He laid His hand upon the infant’s head, He was laying it upon the mother’s heart.
Is not that one of the wonders of Christ’s touch—the union of power and gentleness that marks it? It is mighty to heal, mighty to raise the dead; but a bruised reed it will not break. Why are our Christian homes so full of gentle love, so different from the stern spirit of antiquity? There is only one answer, it is ‘Behold His hands:’ it is the touch of Christ which has achieved it.
They are hands that were pierced. —Their beauty was torn away from them with wounds. They were pierced with nails, and fastened to the Cross, in the hour when Jesus Christ was crucified. But it is the hands which were pierced that have been the mightiest power in human history. Not the hands laid upon the blind man’s eyes, not the hands laid upon the children’s head, have been so mighty in the world’s redemption as the hands that were marred and wounded on the Cross.
JAMES HASTINGS
The Speaker’s Bible -St. Luke Vol. IV
picture from The Chosen TV Series
picture from The Chosen TV Series
