Something you may not know about me: I love hands

When I meet someone new, one of the first features I look at is their hands. You can tell a lot about a person from their hands, the way they hold them, the way they use them when talking, the way they feel when you take their hand in yours. The gentle touch of someone who loves you and is caring for you. The hardened hands of those who use their hands to make their living. The gentle grasp of a parent helping their child take their first steps or the firm grasp of a therapist helping a person learning to walk again after a serious injury or as they coming out of surgery and the anesthesia. In so many ways and in all stages of our lives the hands of others play an important role in our lives.

An aside: there are tragically way too many stories of when hands are used in inappropriate ways: instead of helping, they inflict harm; instead of lifting up, they knock down; instead of embracing us, they push us away. I am not talking about those harmful ways of touching, but I did think it was important to note that not all touch is appropriate let alone loving, gentle, or helpful. We need to know when to turn away from certain kinds of touch. And that we have the right to do so. No one, no matter how well intended, is allowed to touch us without our permission.

But hands. Hands are so important. They do so much. Neil Diamond spoke of hands when he sang Sweet Caroline: “Hands, touching hands

Reaching out, touching me, touching you.”

Think about how many stories about Jesus involve touching hands:

Touching the eyes of the man born blind and giving him sight

Touching those who were sick and suffering and healing them

Touching the little children and welcoming them into his circle

Touching and being touched by women and deeming them worthy

And, of course, taking bread, blessing and breaking it, and giving …

Hands, touching hands

Our story today is one of those stories of Jesus reaching out and touching someone. Jesus is entering a new village and comes upon a funeral procession. There was a young man being carried on a funeral bier, and his clearly grieving and distressed mother had taken her place behind the bier carrying her son’s body. 

Jesus stopped and watched for a moment and was filled with compassion. He moved toward the procession and touching the bier on which the young man was laid, Jesus says: “Young man, I say to you, rise!”

And upon hearing those words and feeling the touch of Jesus, the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.

Let’s unpack this a little more. Jesus was entering a new village. He had come to spread his message of God’s radical love, inclusion, and grace. And as he always did, he was ready and eager to bring hope and healing to those who lived there. So of course, Jesus would be curious to learn more about what was going on.

I suspect that Jesus asked the gathered crowd what was going on. And from the villagers he learned that this was her only son and she was a widow. With this knowledge, Jesus knew the depths of what the woman was feeling and what all this portended for her. As he watched, he was filled with compassion for her.

Here it is important to pause and remember the plight of women living in Jesus’ time. They were totally dependent on the care, protection, and provision of the men in their lives. First they depended on their fathers, then on their husbands, and if widowed, as this woman was, on their sons. They were regarded as property more than as persons in their own right. They were in all ways totally dependent on the men in their lives for their very well-being and safety.

But this woman’s husband was dead, and now so too was her only son. She was defenseless and she was vulnerable. Other than turning to a life of prostitution and begging, this woman would have no way of caring for herself. That is unless there was an uncle or brother or male cousin who would take her in, caring for and protecting  her.

Jesus saw the despair and fear commingled with the grief that the woman was surely feeling. Jesus had compassion on her and automatically sprang into action. More than willing to do what only he could do. He did not consider the fact that touching a dead person was strictly forbidden in his culture and religion, He did it anyway. He did not care that this woman had not even asked for his help, he saw her need and rendered help anyway. 

Not worrying about the reaction of the crowd to his actions, he proceeded to do what he knew he needed to do. He approached the bier on which the dead man lay, he reached out and touched it and said, in what I imagine to be a tender but compelling voice: “Young man, rise.” The man sat up, began to speak, and Jesus commended him to his mother’s care. 

With Jesus’ compassionate touch, two lives were restored that day: the young man being carried on the bier and his grieving mother who walked alongside his lifeless body were both given new life.  The son was given his physical life back and the mother was given back the assurance that she could live her life safely and securely with all her needs taken care of.

Here is the thing: We are now to be Jesus’ hands. I am sure you have heard it said that Jesus has no voice but our voice, no feet but our feet, and no hands but our hands. If Jesus’ compassionate touch is going to be extended to those in need of receiving and feeling it, then it is going to be our hands that do the touching. It is our hands that are to comfort the grieving, it is our hands that are to feed to the hungry, it is our hands that are to build shelters for the homeless; it is our hands that are to reach out and welcome the lonely, the outcast, the marginalized. 

May our hands be hands of compassion, care, kindness, mercy, and justice. 

May our hands be the hands of Jesus reaching out, touching, and serving others in our world today.

Amen.

INVITATION AND BLESSING

Take a moment to look at your hands. Really look at them,

Imagine how God is calling on you to use your hands to touch the lives of

those around you.

Those you know and love

And those you do not know but who can benefit from your touch

As we go about our activities in the week ahead, may we have the eyes of Jesus, seeing the need, the pain, the cries of those around us. Not turning away, but leaning in, like Jesus, may we have compassion on them, and then let us do as Jesus did:

use our compassion to move us to take action to bring some

healing, peace, comfort, and safety to those desperate for 

compassionate touch.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.