Hands of Jesus

I’m going to start this a little differently – and so I’d like to ask you, if you’re holding anything in your hands to put them down for a second.

 I’d like you to take your hands now, can you see them? I want you to look at them. I mean really, take a good long look at your hands – and take a moment to think what your hands have done. How they drove you this morning. How they hugged family or shook hands with your friends today. How they wrote notes for you during the week or typed emails. 

I’d like you to keep looking at them and start thinking back over the years at the amazing things these hands have done. Perhaps they held your new born child, or wiped the tears away of someone you love. Perhaps they’ve helped you to build something or they played a musical instrument. Maybe they wrote the exams that got you through matric or Varsity. They received your first report card, and your first pay cheque.

Perhaps your hands bear the ring of commitment to someone you love. Perhaps they bear scars of needlework, or wrist pain from too much time on the computer. They hold cell phones, and dog collars and sandwiches. They’ve picked flowers and thrown stones and held walking sticks. 

Take a long look at your hands and think how they have journeyed with you – and the stories they could tell. 

Keep that thought in your mind as we turn to our Bible reading. We're doing a series on The Mind of Christ… based on the verses in Philippians 2...

Imitating Christ’s Humility

If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit,  if any tenderness and compassion, ² then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. ³ Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. ⁴ Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
⁵ Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

⁶ Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
⁷ but made himself nothing,
    taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
⁸ And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    and became obedient to death
        even death on a cross!
⁹ Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
    and gave him the name that is above every name,
¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹ and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.

We are going to be looking at Mind of Christ, and in particular Christ as a servant. And to do this, I’d like you to imagine what Jesus hands must have looked like. We spent some time earlier looking at our own hands – but imagine Jesus – if he held out his hands to you, what would they look like? What would the feel like if you held them?

Well Firstly – I believe they would be strong hands.

Jesus was a man, and a man who worked with his hands as a carpenter. Thus as he grew up and learnt the trade, he would have developed strong muscles in his hands and arms. Carpenters in those days were responsible not just for shaping the wood, but for cutting down the trees with axes and carrying the wood home. His hands would have been strong hands.

Our passage today speaks of Jesus saying he was “made in human likeness and found in appearance as a man”

This is his first great act of service – God gave up the power, the prestige, the freedom of immortality, and became a man; a man who began as a weak baby in a manger, a man who got tired and frustrated, a man limited by time and space and flesh. God limited himself to be among us, to smell sweat and feel pain.  The divine walked in sandals and experienced heat and hunger and loneliness.

 Here is how Augustine – one of the great Fathers of the faith  expressed this awesome paradox:
Man’s maker was made man that He, Ruler of the stars, might nurse at His mother’s breast; that the Bread might hunger, the Fountain thirst, the Light sleep, the Way be tired on its journey; that Truth might be accused of false witness, the Teacher beaten with whips, the Foundation be suspended on wood; that Strength might grow weak; that the Healer might be wounded; that Life might die.

In becoming one of us, Jesus shows that he understands our pain and our struggle. The Bible tells us that we do not have a High priest who cannot sympathise with our weakness, but rather one who has been tempted in every way as we are. Jesus gets it. Those times when you are too exhausted to even think straight, those times when frustration makes you shake your fist, those times when loneliness or despair gets too much – Jesus has been there. He understands, and therefore does not condemn – rather we are told to come to the throne of grace whenever we have a need.

God’s hands were the strong muscled hands of a carpenter. Jesus serves us in that he gave up his majesty for a manger and his crown for a cross.

Secondly Jesus hands would be dirty.

I imagine lines in his hands where the dirt has worked its way in. The stain used on wood does not come out easily. I remember when Tim stained some shelves for our room – the stain remained on his hands for more than a week after he built them – and that was after scrubbing them with turps! In the times that Jesus was living, carpenters would use oils on wood to seal it, and ancient varnishes. Many wood saps also have a colour which would be used for glues and stains. 

So his hands would be the darkened hands of a carpenter – but Jesus when he walked with his disciples – he served among us. He reached out to touch a leper, he made mud pies to place on a blind man’s eyes, he played with children and walked with fishermen and rode donkeys. None of these things would lead to smooth, clean manicured hands. On the contrary they would have been the rough dirty calloused hands of a servant. 

Not only did God stoop down and become one of us, but he made himself the least of us. 

Jesus said of himself: “The son of man did not come to be served but to serve – and give his life as a ransom for many.” Matt 20:28

And in Luke 22, he says – “The greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. I am among you as one who serves.”

And in John 13 we read the well-known story of Jesus washing his disciples feet. He took the job of the lowest slave in the house, and took into his hands their dusty, mud crusted, smelling feet and gently washed them. When he finishes he sits down and says to his disciples,

“Do you understand what I have done for you? You call me teacher and Lord and rightly so for that is what I am. Now that I your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.” 

Our passage today reads that he “made himself nothing,” and took “the very nature of a servant,”

- In the amplified version it expands on this by saying he “stripped himself of all the privileges and rightful dignity so as to assume the guise of a slave”

From Paul's perspective this is how divine love manifests itself. Christ entered our history not as kyrios (translated as "Lord"), but as doulos (the word here translated as servant but in actuality is even a step further than that in "slave"), a person without advantages, rights or privileges, but in servanthood to all. It is interesting to note that crucifixion was reserved by the Romans either for insurrectionists or for disobedient slaves.

Jesus hands would have been the strong hands of God made man, but they also would have been the dirty hands of someone who reached out to the world around him and touched our filth and our disease. 

The message here is that just as Jesus reached out and touched the leper – so too he can touch those dirty areas in our life and make them clean. You know how there are those issues and those areas in our minds and hearts where we consciously or unconsciously sweep under rugs and hide in dark closets… I could never let Jesus in there we think – I’d be too ashamed. Remember Jesus has dirty hands. He he is not afraid of the things that shame you or of the darkness – if you allow him to work in those areas of your life he can bring light and healing and wholeness.

The third thing we would notice about Jesus hands is that they would have been scarred hands.

Somewhere in the wrist area there will be nasty scars made from large cruel Roman nails. Men were not crucified by placing nails in the palm of their hands as is traditionally thought  - the flesh of the palm was not strong enough to hold up the weight of a person and their hand would have ripped. Rather the nail is placed between the radius and ulna… the two bones in your forearms. Thus in looking at Jesus hands there would be wrist scars. 

So Jesus serves us in that he became a limited human, he lived the life of a servant as he walked among us, and died the death of a slave in order that we might live. God’s greatest act of service to humanity was that he sent his beloved son to die a cruel death – so that we might have the hope of eternity. He paid a blood fee that we might be redeemed, bought back, and forgiven. He took our place so that we can have his privileges before the Father.

    He humbled himself
    and became obedient to death
        even death on a cross!

To finish off – I want you to look again at your hands.

Jesus lived the life of a servant – a slave. And that is the life we are called to live. Paul says in our reading

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

We must walk in the same spirit and in the same steps with the Lord, who humbled himself to sufferings and death for us; not only to satisfy God’s justice, and pay the price of our redemption, but to set us an example, and that we might follow his steps. Our hands should tell the stories of service. 

Theresa of Avila once said, “Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours, yours are the eyes through which to look out Christ’s compassion to the world. Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good; yours are the hands with which he is to bless men now.”

 And Bill Hybels puts it this way: “I would never want to reach out someday with a soft, uncallused hand – a hand never dirtied by serving – and shake the nail-pierced hand of Jesus.”

To end off there is an anonymous poem that reads as follows:

My hands were filled with many things

That I did precious hold

As any treasure of a King’s –

Silver, or gems, or gold.

The Master came and touched my hands,

(and scars were in His own_

And at His feet my treasures sweet

Fell shattered, one by one.

“I must have empty hands,” said He

“Wherewith to work My works through thee.”

My hands were stained with marks of toil,

Defiled with dust of earth;

And I my work did oft times soil,

And render little worth.

The Master came and touched my hands

(and crimson were His own)

But when, amazed, on mine I gazed,

Lo! Every stain was gone

“I must have cleansed hands,” said He

“Wherewith to work My works through thee.”

My hands were growing feverish

And cumbered with much care!

Trembling with haste and eagerness

Nor folded oft in prayer.

The Master came and touched my hands

(With healing in His own)

And calm and still to do His will

They grew – the fever gone.

“I must have quiet hands,” said He,

“wherewith to work My works for Me.”

My hands were strong in fancied strength

But not in power divine,

And bold to take up tasks at length

That were not His but mine.

The Master came and touched my hands

(And might was in His own!)

But mine since then have powerless been

Save His are laid thereon;

“And it is only thus,” said He,

“That I can work My works through thee.”

We can do nothing without him. We are called to a life of Service, a life following the greatest servant of all – Jesus. But we are powerless without Him.

My prayer is that you’ll take your hands – and place them in the beautiful, strong, calloused, scarred hands of Jesus – and allow Him to use you.