Jesus’ Hands

“Let us make man in our image…” Gen 1:16.
:And the Lord formed man of the dust of the ground…” Gen. 2:7

The Lord created everything with the power of His word. He commanded and it happened. He could have done the same thing with man, but He didn’t. This creature with which He meant to have such a close relationship, He wanted to form with His own hands, according to His likeness, therefore He breathed of His Spirit in his nostrils and made put of it a living soul.

Most people deny this wonderful act of creation. They refuse to accept that they were created by God. They prefer to believe that they descend from other ancestral forms. Already in ancient Greece it was believed that matter changes. It is never the same. In the course of the centuries, the theory was developed that the biological species are not rigid entities but dynamic ones. Finally Charles Darwin presented the theory of evolution in a thesis called, “The origin of the species.”

Today, if we visit anthropological museums around the world, we can see glass cases in which the skulls of primates are displayed together with those of man, to “prove” this process of evolution. Why has man made so many efforts to deny his origin, that he was created by the hands of the Almighty God in an act of supreme love? Very likely because the idea of belonging is very scary to man.

He thinks that to belong to someone deprives him of his freedom. Undoubtedly everything belongs to the one who made it. If a painter paints a picture, it is his, and so it happens with us. We belong to our Creator, to God, because He shaped us with His own hands. People who have had a deep relationship with the Lord were happy to acknowledge that they were products of His hands: “Your hands have made me and fashioned me, an intricate unity…” says Job 10:8, and he continues:

“Did you not pour me out like milk, and curdled me like cheese, clothe me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews?” Job 10:10, 11. Beautiful verbs are used in this description: clothe, knit, all entail special care. And then Job asks the Lord whether He will destroy something He has fashioned with so much love.

David also acknowledges God as His Creator, and he says in Psalm 139:13, 14: “For you have formed my inward parts: you have covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” We don’t need to study anatomy or physiology to see that we are wonderfully made, although certainly the study of these subjects would increase our amazement and admiration for God’s wisdom and love. We just have to consider the eye, that precious organ, and see how the Lord protected it with the eyebrows, eyelids, eyelashes, so that no strange body may harm it. How much more does He protect all our being, and mostly our soul. Angels are around us all the time and David has so deeply experienced this tender and loving care of His owner, that in the same Psalm 139:5,6, he says: “You have hedged me behind and before, and laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain it.” God’s hands upon us imply His blessings.

Even the creatures in heaven, the angels, are amazed at such care and love for us, miserable sinners. No wonder they sing: “Holy, holy, holy” all day long without getting bored or tired, because in every utterance there is a deeper understanding of His holiness and mercy.

“The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground,” and not only did He make man, but He planted a garden for His creature. As we read the report of creation we learn He commanded the earth to give forth grass, but we are told He planted a garden. Again there is a direct participation in man’s natural habitat, the most beautiful garden, the Garden of Eden.

The same hands that created us with so much wisdom and love are the ones that redeemed us. When the gap between God and man was opened due to sin, Jesus came to this earth with a very specific mission, to stretch out His saving hands to the fallen race. Just the contact of His hand brought healing to the sick, as it happened with Peter’s mother-inlaw whose fever left her as she received the holy touch (Matthew 8:14) and she got up to serve. Thus, when we are touched by Jesus’ healing hand, we wish to lead a life of service.

Jesus put His hand upon the children to bless them (Matthew 19:13). Those same hands that knew only to do good, were stretched out on the cross and pierced with big nails. Who put those nails in His loving hands? Whom did Jesus die for? In John 3:16 we read that He died for the whole world, but in Hebrew 9:28

we read: “Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear a second time without sin unto salvation. ” Many for God are very few. He meant for all to be saved. Who are these many? The ones who love Him and are eagerly waiting for His coming, the ones who responded to His love with love, the ones He calls His friends. Let us read Zechariah 13:6:

“What are these wounds between your arms? These with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.” What a paradox! The ones who loved Him, His friends, are the same ones who crucified Him, and their names are inscribed in the palms of His hands, as Isaiah 49:15 tells us. It is there that we have to fix our eyes.

Before Thomas’ unbelief, the Lord tells him: “Look at my hands ” (John 20:27) His hands are a guarantee of our redemption, so let us not lose sight of Jesus’ hands because there is where His power is hidden, as Habbakuk tells us: “He had rays flashing from his hand, and there his power was hidden.” (Hab. 3:4) Those rays coming out of His hands are rays of light and grace that are constantly flowing to all humanity.

We all need two very important revelations in our lives, and both have to do with Jesus’ hands: the first one is that we were created by Him out of dust and it is only His Spirit that makes out of us living souls. It must have been a shocking experience for Adam, after he fell into sin, to find out something the Lord would have never told him otherwise: “For dust you are, and to dust you shall return. ” Gen. 3:19

And the next revelation we need is to see our names engraved in His hands so as to be sure that we also belong to Him through redemption. If we are engraved in His hands nothing can separate us from him, because even sin becomes so painful that sooner or later we must come back to the path of obedience. May the Lord give this revelation to those who haven’t had it. May He keep it alive in the ones who have experienced it and may He keep the eyes of us all fixed on His pierced hands from where the rays of His grace shine over the whole world and where His might is hidden.
AMEN

By: Teresa Corti