Mark continued looking at the body of Jesus last night, this time looking at the hands of Jesus. How did Jesus use His hands?
First and foremost, Jesus worked with His hands. Mark 6:1-3 tells us that He worked as a carpenter for the majority of His life. He was a working man, used to manual labour – and as such, His hands would reflect that. He was an example of servanthood, washing His disciples’ feet with His hands (John 13:1-5). He showed us that we too should be workers and servants, not afraid to get involved.
Jesus did many miracles with His hands, such as the raising of Jairus’s daughter (Mark 5:35-42), where touching a dead body to bring life shows us the radical nature of how He worked. He was prepared to touch the untouchable to bring life. He healed a deaf and mute man (Mark 7:31-35) by spitting and touching his tongue and ears and healed a blind man (John 9:1-7) in similar fashion, spitting on the ground, making mud and putting it on the man’s eyes. Clearly He had no need to do use His hands to heal, but He did so to inspire faith.
In Matt 14:15-21, Jesus fed the five thousand by taking the bread, giving thanks and breaking it. He was not held back by a fear of failure, using unconventional means at times to bring healing and provision. We too need to be bold in our faith, for the fear of man can bring a snare.
Jesus’s hands also bore the scars of the Crucifixion, a sign of how much He loved us in that He was willing to bear such pain for us. John 20:24-29 shows us how those scars were still visible after the Resurrection. The greatest miracle we see is that of the Crucifixion and Resurrection.
Now we are the hands of Jesus on earth. Let’s work as He did and serve a world which can only see Jesus through us.
We also had a birthday to celebrate!