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.

The Goodness of God!

Psalm 145

A psalm of praise. Of David.

¹ I will exalt you, my God the King;
    I will praise your name for ever and ever.
² Every day I will praise you
    and extol your name for ever and ever.

³ Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise;
    his greatness no one can fathom.
⁴ One generation will commend your works to another;
    they will tell of your mighty acts
⁵ They will speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty,
    and I will meditate on your wonderful works.
⁶ They will tell of the power of your awesome works,
    and I will proclaim your great deeds.
⁷ They will celebrate your abundant goodness
    and joyfully sing of your righteousness.

⁸ The Lord is gracious and compassionate,
    slow to anger and rich in love.
⁹ The Lord is good to all;
    he has compassion on all he has made.
¹⁰ All you have made will praise you, O Lord;
    your saints will extol you.
¹¹ They will tell of the glory of your kingdom,
    and speak of your might,
¹² so that all men may know of your mighty acts
    and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.
¹³ Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
    and your dominion endures through all generations.

The Lord is faithful to all his promises,
    and loving toward all he has made.
¹⁴ The Lord upholds all those who fall
    and lifts up all who are bowed down.
¹⁵ The eyes of all look to you,
    and you give them their food at the proper time.
¹⁶ You open your hand
    and satisfy the desires of every living thing.

¹⁷ The Lord is righteous in all his ways
    and loving toward all he has made.
¹⁸ The Lord is near to all who call on him,
    to all who call on him in truth.
¹⁹ He fulfills the desires of those who fear him;
    he hears their cry and saves them.
²⁰ The Lord watches over all who love him,
    but all the wicked he will destroy.

²¹ My mouth will speak in praise of the Lord.
    Let every creature praise his holy name
    for ever and ever.

Isn’t that a beautiful Psalm? It’s truly one of my favourites. It’s a Psalm of David, which was actually a song – one of the sadness’s of translating things like the Psalms is that one loses out on the rhyme and rhythm of the songs. This is also the last of the acrostic poems – an acrostic poem is when each line begins with the next letter of the alphabet. In this case the Hebrew alphabet of 22 letters.  Strangely though – and this can be your interesting fact for the day – In verse 13 you will notice there are four lines. The second two lines which reads

The Lord is faithful to all his promises,
    and loving toward all he has made.

Does not fit into this acrostic pattern. It stands alone in the midst of the psalm and no one knows why!

Goodness is a difficult term to define these days as it is one of those words which gets used to describe any number of things.  The chicken we ate for supper last night – that was some good chicken. The little boy who sits quietly through a church service is a good boy. A closely competitive rugby match is a good game. And let me tell you – I’m feeling good today!

All these things however good they may be – are in some way tainted. They are good for the moment – but far from what we mean when we talk of God’s incredible goodness.

When Jesus gets approached by a rich young man and addressed with the term “Good teacher” he replies by saying in Mark 10:18 (NLT): "’Why do you call me good,’ … ’Only God is Truly Good.’"

The Dictionary defines goodness as: moral excellence, kindness, generosity, benevolence. We’re going to look at Psalm 145 among other passages to come to understand the saying we so glibly say so often;

God is good, all the time and all the time, God is good.

Firstly – Moral Excellence. Another way of saying this would be verse ¹⁷ The Lord is righteous in all his ways
    and loving toward all he has made.

Righteousness. The Lord is Goodness – thus everything we know as being good, we know because we can compare to him, and his standards, and his love. He is the plumb line – the constant, the unchanging. When we want to know what is right or good we turn to Scripture, we turn to Christ and how he lived while here among us. “What would Jesus do” is a well overused saying, but its truth remains – you want to live a good life? Follow Christ. This is why we refer to God as the Rock – the one solid aspect in our lives that will not change. Why Jesus said that those who obey his teachings are like a man who builds his house upon a rock – constant – dependable.

One of my favourite authors; Lloyd C. Douglas, who wrote The Robe and many other novels, lived in a boarding house during college. A retired music teacher lived on the first row, with whom he had a daily ritual. Douglas would ask, “What’s the good news today?” The old man would take his tuning fork and strike the side of his wheelchair and said, “That’s is Middle C. It was Middle C yesterday, and it will be Middle C a thousand years from now. The soprano upstairs sings off-key, and the piano across the hall is out of tune. But this - this is Middle C.”

Moral excellence. As the song says;

GREAT IS THY FAITHFULNESS, O GOD, MY FATHER
THERE IS NO SHADOW OF TURNING WITH THEE
THY CHANGEST NOT, THY COMPASSIONS THEY FAIL NOT
AS THOU HAST BEEN THOU FOREVER WILL BE 

Secondly – Kindness.  Again this is a word that has truly lost its significance. 

There’s a lovely story from the Olympics comes from 1928, about Henry Pearce of Australia who was competing in the single scull rowing event. He was leading when a duck and her string of ducklings came into view up ahead. They were on a collision course and Pearce reckoned his boat would cut the string in two and sink a few ducklings in the process. So he pulled in his oars. When the ducks had passed Pearce again bent his back to the task. There’s a happy ending to the story in that he still went on to win the race.

The kindness of God is what Isaiah was talking about in chapter 42 when it reads,

“A bruised reed he will not break and a smouldering wick he will not snuff out.”

This aspect of the goodness of God is what makes him ever patient with us and our failures, our falls, our disappointments. It’s what makes him sit with us in our grief, and weep alongside us. It is this kindness that draws us to him, rather than the harsh push of need. As a child runs to his father with a scraped knee so we can run to our Father with our bruised lives. 

We see it in Jesus reaching out to touch the man with leprosy, turning to speak to the woman who had touched his cloak, in noticing the short outcast who had climbed a tree to see him go by, in feeding 5000 families, in raising a widow’s son.

 In verse 14 of our passage it reads:

¹⁴ The Lord upholds all those who fall
    and lifts up all who are bowed down.

Mother Theresa is quoted as saying

“Be the Living expression of God’s kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile.”

Generosity is the next in the definition of goodness, and I wonder if we even need to walk down this road. Creation sings to the generosity of God, Family testifies to it, our church is evidence of it.

I’ve just spent 10 days in the Fish River Canyon and in the Kalahari desert. You have never seen stars until you’ve seen stars in the desert. We would lie at night staring at the sky in wonderment – there was not a single patch of sky that was not flecked with specks of light. The milky way was a clear bright stripe running through the sky. We saw shooting stars, and satellites, and constellations and really words are inadequate to try and describe them.

Science tells us that without a telescope you can only see about 3,000 stars from any point on Earth and let me tell you we saw at least that. They estimate the universe contains at least 70 sextillion stars (70-thousand-million-million-million). That's 7 followed by 22 zeroes, or ten-times the number of grains of sand on earth. Psalm 147:4 tells us God "counts the numbers of the stars; He gives names to all of them." 70 sextillion names. You what to know about generosity? Not only that, but God counts the numbers of every hair on every person in the world. Jesus said, "Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered" (Luke 12:7). 

Kent Crockett, a Christian author and speaker commented that “If God knows that much, He certainly knows what you are going through right now.”

God is a generous God – take a brief moment to think of the ways in which he has blessed you. Our thoughts immediately go to family, and friends, houses and jobs, children, grandchildren...

And then we see Christ. God’s ultimate act of generosity… For God so loved the world that he GAVE…

If God did not withhold giving us his most beloved and precious only son – will he not freely give us all things. If you who are evil know how to give gifts to your children, how much more would your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask.

Our God is a good God.

Lastly the definition speaks of benevolence. Whereas the words goodness and kindness have been overused – This is a seldom used word. It speaks of the nature of a person, beyond their actions. It links to concepts of selflessness and altruism. 

In the OT, goodness is translated from the Hebrew words tov and tuv: but it refers to that quality in God that causes Him to deliver people, bless them and store up future gifts for them. It implies a sense of delight in the giver and the gift. This delight is the nature of God – a God who longs to deliver and bless and give.

This is how we can say God is good – all the time. It’s not just his actions, but his very being that is good. Sadly however this understanding brings up difficult questions. Just on Thursday our country was thrown into shock with 34 miners being shot by police in protests, just 100km from here. 34 families today are without fathers and sons and breadwinners. Wives are asking God why? Children are asking God why? 

And there is the on-going painful question that we all ask at some point in our lives. How can a good God, allow suffering? How can there be so much evil in the world, and since it’s a personal question it becomes how can there be so much pain and struggle in my life. 

Corrie Ten Boom said, “Often I have heard people say, ‘How good God is! We prayed that it would not rain for our church picnic, and look at the lovely weather!’ Yes, God is good when He sends good weather. But God was also good when He allowed my sister, Betsie, to starve to death before my eyes in a German concentration camp. I remember one occasion when I was very discouraged there. Everything around us was dark, and there was darkness in my heart. I remember telling Betsie that I thought God had forgotten us. "No, Corrie," said Betsie, "He has not forgotten us. Remember His Word: 'For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him.'" Corrie concluded, "There is an ocean of God's love available--there is plenty for everyone. May God grant you never to doubt that victorious love--whatever the circumstances."

Terrible things happen. We don’t always know why. But what we can know is that whatever the circumstances. God’s goodness and his love does not change. He proved his love once for all on the cross, in the horrific death and resurrection of his son. He loves you that much. Just as a child cannot understand why his parents would take him for painful injections, or force him to eat his vegetables – so too we cannot understand all our Heavenly Father does. But we can know beyond a shadow of a doubt that whatever those circumstances are – God does not change. His goodness, His love, His mercy is steadfast.

Our Psalm today reads in verses:

⁸ The Lord is gracious and compassionate,
    slow to anger and rich in love.
⁹ The Lord is good to all;
    he has compassion on all he has made.

Tim and I, when we got married made a deal with each other. You see I know that Tim loves me and would never intentionally do anything to hurt me, and he knows this from my side too. So whenever anything is said, that sounds harsh, or can be taken in two ways – we made a deal with each other to always hear the way in was meant – in love. I have chosen to always believe the best about my husband because I know him and his love for me.

In the same way, the way we look at the world shows what we believe about God. God is good. All the time. If we look at the world with that understanding, we will run to him, rather than from him. We will know that nothing is outside of his mercy. We will approach the throne of grace with confidence in times of need. We will experience the nearness and love and kindness of God in hours of our deepest need.

There is a beautiful poem which reads

"He giveth more grace when burdens grow greater,
He sendeth more strength when the labors increase;
To added affliction, He addeth His mercy,
To multiplied trials, His multiplied peace.
When we have exhausted our store of endurance;
When our strength has failed ere the day is half done;
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources;
Our Father's full giving is only begun.
His love has no limit, His grace knows no measure,
His power no boundary known unto men;
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus He giveth and giveth and giveth again."

Our God is a good God.