I had thought that this past Wednesday I was going to get a little time to myself, maybe to sit down and read, or take a walk, or drink coffee on the deck, gazing into nowhere. I had thought there might be a little leisure, as somehow the calendar had no entries on it! But no!! She who has for 47 years brought both joy and jobs to my life had other plans. And the other plans were to dig up the accumulated dirt and gravel and other debris that had collected outside our basement door. Years of mire and muck had floated off the patio and onto the doorstep. Wednesday morning it became my fate to dig it out.
In fairness, though, I should say, she had not planned for me to do everything alone that was required to fix that sorry situation. I was to dig out the debris, yes, but our son was coming over at noon. Have you noticed that sons, though happily married and in their own homes, come over at noon, when Mom will fix lunch? Our son was coming over to lay pavers, and we must be ready. That meant hands in the dirt. Hands reaching out to lift this grimy accumulation and move it out of the way.
Why not just shovel it, you say? Why must your hands literally get into it? Because she who has for 47 years brought both joy and jobs to my life is also a saver. We discard nothing that might be useful. And since an earlier attempt to manage this spot outside the door had involved river rock, and that river rock was now all embedded in dirt, the task was not only to dig out this conglomeration, but also to reach in, by hand, sort out the river rock, and save it in a tub. Hand-pick it, pull out each piece, brush off most of the dirt, reach out and plunk it into the tub. We are savers, you see; I’ll bet we saved a good two dollars worth of river rock that way!
Well, I persisted; I saved the river rock, got rid of the dirt, unearthed several nails and screws, a comb, and a ballpoint pen. Lots of good stuff. But, as you might expect, my hands were a mess. Filthy, crud under the fingernails, scratches on the knuckles, dried out places on the fingers. My hands were horrible to behold. However, just as I was finishing, right on time, up drove my son, ready for lunch and ready as well to work his magic with the pavers. Before long he had poured crushed rock, spread sand, and spaced and leveled those pavers just right, and no one would ever have known that earlier that morning the place had been such an unsightly spot. His hands reached out and placed the pavers perfectly. Let the record show, however, that he could do so only because his dad had already mangled his own hands getting it ready.
And so it is that you and I are not only commanded but also empowered by our Lord to reach out our hands and provide hope and health and salvation to this world. He has gone before us and has pierced His hands with the sorrows of this world, enabling us to reach our hands out and give this world what it needs.
Did you notice the mention of hands in the story of Thomas and his encounter with the risen Christ? I’m sure you noticed where Thomas wanted to put his hand – in the wounded side and in the pierced hands of Jesus. Unless and until he could touch Jesus for himself, he could not believe that the Lord was risen. But then, did you notice that when Thomas did encounter Jesus, Jesus called his bluff? Jesus urged Thomas to reach out his hand and put it in the marks of pain. Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side.” Jesus’ hands; Thomas’ hands. Reach out.
There is a connection between the pain in the hands of the crucified and the outreach of the hands of the disciple. We hear the command of Christ to Thomas, “Reach out your hand.” Connect that with the suffering, broken, bleeding hands of Calvary.
How do we make that connection? Our redeemer put His hands into the mire of this world to save us, and it took immense sacrifice and enormous pain for Him to do that. But when His hands took that punishment, He gained the right to command us to reach out to this world, and more than that, He empowered us. He empowers the doubting Thomases and the reluctant among us to reach out to lengths we never dreamed possible.
I
Isn’t it interesting that Thomas originally stayed out of the room where his companions had gathered? They had gathered in a house and had locked the door for fear of what the authorities might do. They were marked men, and they were afraid. They were in grief. Thomas, however, stayed away, for a whole week.
Isn’t that a picture of us as well? Have we stayed as far away as possible from the pain of this world? We can look at the sufferings of all sorts of people on our television screens, but we shut off the picture, because it’s too upsetting. We can hear about a neighbor who has been diagnosed with a fatal cancer, and we know we really should go and express concern, but it’s threatening, and we stay away. I know a pastor who absolutely dreads nursing home visits. He will do anything he can to steer clear of those nursing homes where they warehouse patients out in the day room and let them sleep away the hours in wheelchairs. He says it’s threatening to see that; he is afraid it will happen to him someday. And so he stays away until he is just about forced to go.
Isn’t that our picture? We find it very hard indeed to step into the world of pain. And, like Thomas, we really cannot believe that Christ is there. We really cannot imagine that He whom we sing as “Fairest Lord Jesus” is present where there is ugliness and grief and pain and sickness and confusion. But He is. He is.
Jesus Christ is present wherever people suffer. He is there suffering among them and with them. Think about this resurrection appearance. Here is Jesus, so recently mauled and mangled on the Cross, then wrapped in grave clothes and put into the tomb, but now risen from the dead. What do you suppose He looked like? Popular art has all these pictures of Jesus in glory, with radiant light around His white robe and a glorious aura. But what does this Scripture tell us? It tells us that the scars of the crucifixion were still there! It tells us that the wounds on His hands and the spear slash in His side were still evident. The hymn writer sings, “Those wounds yet visible above, in beauty glorified.” The wounds of Christ remain. For He is present and He is suffering wherever His children suffer.
He is present among the dying. I have myself seen men and women pass from life through death into eternal life with a peaceful smile on their faces, for they knew His love was with them. His hands felt their pain and gathered them up quietly in love.
He is present among the distressed. I have listened to people pour out their stories of difficulty and disillusionment and then have watched all the struggles drain out as they heard, “Peace be unto you. Be anxious about nothing. Peace I give unto you, not as the world gives.” His hands, marked with wounds, reach out and calm us when we are distressed.
And He is present wherever in this world there is oppression and injustice and warfare and all the cruel things we do to one another. He is present with His wounds in Congo, a nation to which my good pastor friend Adrien Ngudiankama says he cannot return, lest he be killed. Christ is present with His wounds in Zimbabwe, a nation so ground down for years under repression, taking so many lives, among them a minister friend Canaan Banana, who dared to oppose the regime. Christ is present, in pain.
And Christ is present in the agony of Darfur, Christ is present in the poverty of Chad, Christ is present among the flood victims of Indonesia, Christ is present among the storm-washed people of Haiti, Christ is present in the threatened highlands of Tibet, Christ is present, with His wounded hands, wherever people suffer. His message is the message He gave in that room. “Peace be with you.” Peace, health, and salvation. For those things He suffered and died; for those things He still suffers.
“Put your finger here and see my hands.” Like Thomas, we can readily see, if we no longer isolate ourselves. Like Thomas, once we enter the world-room of grief, the wounded hands of Christ become obvious.
II
So what can be done? What is it that the Lord will do about such a world as this? The command is clear and certain. The command is to you and to me as well as to Thomas, “Reach out your hand.” “Reach out your hand.” For, you see, Christ and His sacrifice have prepared the way. Christ and His wounds have opened up the need. The hands of Christ have prepared the way, and now He commands and empowers us, “Reach out your hand.”
We do not see Thomas again in the Bible. Information about him is scant. But tradition says that Thomas became a missionary for the Gospel. Tradition puts Thomas in India, a long, long way from a lonely room in Jerusalem. There is a church, the Indian Orthodox Church, which has been an outpost of Christianity for centuries. Many families who are members of that church name their sons “Thomas”, even today, for they have reason to believe that this once-skeptical man, this one who at first isolated himself from the room of pain – they have reason to believe that Thomas did reach out his hand. That he reached it out to touch a distant part of the world with the good news. Thomas reached out both hand and heart, stirred by the wounded hands of Christ and empowered to achieve something grand for the Kingdom.
Oh, that today Christ’s people would reach out their hands! That we would reach out our hands to the people of Africa, as Pastor Olero is doing; for he has seen the suffering of widows and orphans in his part of Kenya, and he is bringing them shelter and hope and salvation. That we might reach out to Africa, where so many still struggle with disease and poverty and injustice.
Oh, that today, like Thomas, the people of Christ would reach out their hands to Asia, where not just millions, but billions live in need. China is a giant that wants to be a world player, but there are incredible numbers of struggling people there. Japan is a powerhouse, but with intense lostness among those who work so hard for success. North Korea may be a rogue nation at its head, but its people are starving. One of the happiest moments of my pastorate came when the church I served collected so many coats for the people of North Korea that I had to borrow a bigger truck to haul them to the shipping point! For one shining moment, my church reached out to Asia.
And, oh yes, to reach out to Central and South America, where there are cities jammed with people living in makeshift houses, getting by on whatever they can beg or earn or steal day by day. Favellas full of desperate people.
And to reach out to Europe, whose history is full of conflict and bloodshed, despite its great cathedrals and its eloquent theologians. Several years ago I stood in Coventry Cathedral in England and saw the altar of the cross of nails, nails taken from the ruins of that church after it had been bombed by Germany. The altar had beneath that cross the simple phrase, “Father, forgive.” But on that same trip, we went to Berlin, and there I stood in the ruins of the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedechtniskirche, also a bombed out church, and saw there again nails from Coventry, this time with an altar that read, “Vater, Vergib”. The nails, you see, pierce the hands of Christ for all of this world, all of it, for everywhere there are world-rooms of pain and grief.
And, oh that today the people of Christ, who have seen the nail-scarred hands, would reach out their hands to their own neighbors, their neighbors from many lands and places, their neighbors who are struggling with poor jobs and legal problems and inadequate health care – that the people of First Baptist Church, simply because the suffering Christ is here, would reach out in dynamic ways to the pain of Montgomery County, Maryland. Can it be done? Of course it can! I know of one church in our county that has enlisted the doctors and nurses and other medical people who are among its members, and they have created a free clinic, staffed with volunteers, charging no fees, for those who have no other resources. Hands reaching out. It can be done.
Youth of First Baptist Church! Who among you would reach out and become a missionary? Not long ago you had an eye-opening experience on a missions trip. Is someone ready for eye-opening to become hand-reaching?
Men and women of First Baptist Church! Some of you worked as Builders for Christ, doing missions this summer. But are there not more of you who would give a week of your vacation overseas or would work in a clinic somewhere? My sister-in-law and her husband go to Mexico every year to run a pediatric clinic and come back the happiest people you ever saw! Why not you? Why not us? Reach out your hand.
“Reach out your hand” is the command of the Lord. He has reached out His hands for us, and they are wounded with the pain of the world. But in those wounded hands there is power to enable us, doubters and skeptics though we may be, to reach out and change this world.
When we were kids, we played a hand game. A little girl would say to a little boy, “How much do you like me? This much?” And she would put her hands close together. The little boy would answer, “No, I like you this much.” And the hands would go a little farther apart. Then the little girl, overcoming her shyness, would ask again, “How much do you love me? This much?” And the hands would come out farther. So it would go until the little boy could contain his excitement no more, and would exclaim, “I like you this much” and would throw his arms out, hands stretched as far as possible in either direction. “I like you to the tips of my fingers.” And that would be the start of a kiddie romance that might last all of two weeks.
But, brothers and sisters, the hands of Jesus have reached down into the miry clay and have lifted us up. The hands of Jesus have reached down into the world-room of pain and have comforted us. The hands of Jesus have reached into the very depths of our hearts and have brought us peace. The hands of Jesus one day stretched wide on a Cross, and there God said, “I love you this much. And I love you to the very ends of the earth.”
If that be true, then how can we do anything less than reach out our hands to the world He loves so much?
