The resurrected life has a lot to do with hands and feet.
After saying “Peace be with you,” one of the first things that our resurrected Lord does each time he appears to his followers is show his hands and feet. Showing his hands and feet comes before eating fish to prove that he is not a ghost. It is of more significance than that. Showing hands and feet comes before any other post-resurrection wonder that he performs.
Do not let the significance of Jesus’ hands and feet float by as your mind begins to wander to shopping lists or to do lists at home. Stay with me here because the gospel writers are telling us that there is something essential to Christian faith in Jesus’ actions. It is as if you cannot possibly even think of calling yourself a follower of Jesus Christ unless you first look at and consider his hands and his feet.
What do the resurrected hands look like anyway?
Are they still moist and seeping blood from the nails of the cross? Is Jesus still actively suffering for our sake?
Do they have large scars; healed, but still holding a reminder of what struggles had been overcome in life?
Are they completely healed, all pain and torture completely taken care of…all sins thrown upon Jesus’ body completely wiped away?
Surprisingly, he Bible does not actually describe those hands and feet. But, do not let that dissuade you. Those hands and feet still play a central role in the resurrected life. Just what is it about those hands and feet that are so essential?
The hands and feet of Jesus, no matter their state of being healed or lack thereof, always remind us of the cross. Apparently, one of the things that Jesus never wants us to forget is the cross.
You may react, “Well duh, we are Christians. How could we forget the cross?” But, there are many ways that people who call themselves Christians engage the world without ever considering the cross.
Some who call themselves Christians only focus on the power of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. They see in his resurrection the complete and total power of God to do anything and everything. And, if God can defeat death in Jesus’ name, God can do it for you too. All you have to do is ask! Are you poor? Ask God with a pure heart and the money will come to you as a shower from heaven! Just send a tax deductible gift of at least $25 to the address listed below on the screen, and you too will feel the power of God in your life!
Sarcasm aside, most honest Christians too believe that in the resurrection Jesus destroyed the power of sin and death. Most honest Christians too believe in the new life that the resurrection brings.
What honest Christians do not forget, that others who call themselves Christians often do, is that it all came with a price. God’s grace is not free. It cost God something. It cost the life of his Son. It required a sacrifice of love on the part of Jesus.
God is not some magician that just waves a wand and makes anything happen. Just look at Jesus’ hands and feet. Those are hands and feet of love. Those are hands and feet that would go to the point of death on a cross for you.
The resurrected life has something to do with those hands and feet. The resurrected life has something to do with Jesus’ sacrifice of love on the cross that cannot ever be forgotten.
By the way, in case you have never realized it, you live in the resurrected life of Jesus right now. This is not just some promise of heaven for the future when you die.
Jesus showed his hands and his feet to the disciples while they were still living.
As one of his disciples, you too are invited to consider his hands and feet in your life right now. You too live a resurrected life right now. You live a life that trusts in the resurrection, and does not forget that sacrifice is essential to that life. Teresa of Avila put it this way:
“Christ has no body now but yours.
No hands, no feet on earth but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world.
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.
Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands,
yours are the feet,
yours are the eyes,
you are his body.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”
The reason that Jesus shows his hands and his feet immediately to the disciples is because he wants to remind all who call on him as Lord that love is about sacrifice.
A number of years back, the bluegrass band “Nickel Creek” which is headed by Chris Thile of Prairie Home Companion (Love from Here) fame, performed a song written by one of its members (Sean Watkins) called “The Hand Song.” The song talks about sacrifice. The lyrics go like this:
The boy only wanted to give mother something
And all of her roses had bloomed
Looking at him as he came rushing in with them
Knowing her roses were doomed
All she could see were some thorns buried deep
And the tears that he cried as she tended his wounds
But she knew it was love
It was one she could understand
He was showing his love
And that's how he hurt his hands
He still remembered that night as a child
On his mother's knee
She held him close as she opened the bible
And quietly started to read
Then seeing a picture of Jesus he cried out
Momma, he's got some scars just like me
And he knew it was love
It was one he could understand
He was showing his love
And that's how he hurt his hands
Now the boy's grown and moved out on his own
When Uncle Sam comes along
A foreign affair, but our young men were there
And luck had his number drawn
It wasn't that long till our hero was gone
He gave to a friend what he learned from the cross
Well they knew it was love
It was one they could understand
He was showing his love
And that's how he hurt his hands
It was one they could understand
He was showing his love
And that's how he hurt his hands
Wounded hands. That is something we can understand. Jesus wounded his hands for us, and that is love. Little boys wound their hands to give their mothers roses, and that is love. Soldiers learn the lesson of the cross and give their lives, and that is love.
You can tell a lot about somebody by looking at their hands.
If they are smudged with grease, they are a mechanic.
If they are crusted with dirt, they are a farmer.
If they bear the marks of nails, they are Jesus.
If they bear the love of Christ, they are a follower of Jesus.
As one who calls yourself a Christian, what stories do your hands tell?
Here is what I hope. I hope that they tell the tale of Jesus’ sacrificial love…in their own way. May they tell the tale of one who would sacrifice time, money, home, food, and even life itself for the sake of another. May your hands and feet resemble the hands and feet of Christ who gave his life for the sake of the world, and for you.
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