Holy Hands are Healing
What I’d like you to do is, if you’re able take a moment to
look at your hands. Observe them. If you’re not able to see your hands perhaps
touch one to another and feel them. What do they feel like? Our hands are the
way we interact with the world. Through them we feel what’s going on, and our
sense of touch is often the first to appear and the last to leave us as we die.
They say should hold the hand of a dying person because they will know you are
there.
Hands are meant for touching, for grasping for caring. If
you’ve ever put your finger in the palm of a newborn baby they will cling on to
it, as if they are clinging on to you for dear life. It’s called the Palmar
Grasp Reflex.
Like many of the involuntary movements babies are born with,
the grasp reflex probably developed to help her in some way — for example, to
grab a nearby object or prepare to feed herself.
The palmar reflex is similar to another type of movement
called the plantar reflex (or Babinski reflex), which causes your infant’s foot
to curl in and their toes to flare or flex outward when the sole of their foot
is stroked.
I think it’s deeper than that though. Through our hands we
touch and feel, and I believe that sense of reaching out, for comfort, for
strength is a big part of what it means to be human. The use of our hands and
walking on two feet is, after all, what has enabled us to build much of the
world around us.
Hands are reflective of us. They can be used in tender ways,
to embrace, to offer a comforting touch, and dare I say it to caress a loved
one.
Hands can also be made into fists, they can be used to harm,
to gesture aggressively, particularly in a car when someone cuts you up…
Hands are individual to each and every one of us. No two
hands are exactly the same, imprinted on our hands is our uniqueness, put there
by God in our fingerprints.
One of the great joys of ministry is for me, giving out
Communion to people, and every hand tells a story. Some hands are rough, others
smooth. Some are large, some are small. Some are black, brown, white and all
inbetween. Some are calloused and others are bruised and cut. There’s something
holy about hands.
I wonder what Jesus’ hands and feet looked like. He was after
all the son of a carpenter. Did he have scars on them from where a tool had
slipped? Were they rough and calloused? In the words of the old hymn:
Lord of all
eagerness, Lord of all faith,
Whose strong hands were skilled
At the plane and the lathe,
Be there at our labours,
And give us, we pray,
Your strength in our hearts, Lord,
At the noon of the day.
Jesus had
hands like ours, like yours. The reached, grasped, embraced and eventually took
nails into them on the cross for us.
Jesus’ hands
healed others, as he embraced and touched those who were in need.
There’s something holy about hands I think, and what we use
them for. There’s something really holy in that moment when we hold our hands
out to receive the bread and the wine. When we receive, when we say yes to
Jesus, when we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes, when we say yes Lord,
be with us. Be with us Lord Christ, in your hands that were broken for us.
In our Gospel reading I often imagine Mary’s hands and hair
touching Jesus’ feet, and anointing them with a tenderness that Judas just
didn’t understand. An entire pint of expensive oil lavished upon him. She
poured it over him, so much that the house was full of the fragrance of it.
There’s a holiness in care. In the hands that care for
others, that wash hair, clothe the naked, feed and support. There’s so much
holiness in the care sector, in those who work in our care homes, in our
hospitals, in homes with people who have learning difficulties. There is
nothing more holy than this work. And yet, it goes un noticed, often
undervalued and extremely underpaid.
Jesus noticed the care of others, and still notices those who
go out of their way to care.
“Leave her alone,” Jesus replied. “It was intended that she
should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the
poor among you, but you will not always have me.”
This passage has often been used throughout history to
justify allowing people to live in poverty. As an excuse for exploiting
workers.
Well, we’ll always have the poor with us, that’s just their
lot. That’s what Jesus said.
I’d like us to look at this a different way, because I don’t
believe that’s what Jesus was saying.
Yes there poor would always be among them, at that time, but
that doesn’t mean we have to accept that we should always have poor people, or
even let poor people suffer because ‘that’s their lot.’
Jesus hung around with a lot of poor people, and gave them
preferential access to him. It was the least among them that he felt called to
listen to, it was the children, the widows and the down trodden that Jesus
chose to spend his life and Ministry with.
Perhaps this lent as we figure out what it means for us to be
holy, and to walk with Jesus to his cross and then resurrection we need to
re-kindle the idea of holy work.
I don’t mean in a sanctimonious sort of way, but in the
holiness of the every day, in the God that is in all things and chooses to make
His dwelling with us.
Perhaps we need to remember the holiness of caring for
others. The care for others that Jesus’ life was characterised by. The only
thing of him that we can imitate.
Perhaps we need to remember those who do the holy work of
caring for us, in our prayers, in our lives and seek justice for them as they
work really hard.
Perhaps we need to dedicate ourselves to wanting a society
where people are cared for, regardless of who they are.
Where people aren’t punished like they were in Jesus’ time
for being sick or disabled.
Perhaps to take up our cross, deny ourselves and follow him,
is to follow into those places where people are forgotten and abandoned.
Hands are holy things, when used correctly. They can be
powerful as many hands make light work.
Like Judas we can look at the figures, and worry about who is
worthy or not. Be obsessed over who receives 50p more than they should,
Or we can be like Jesus and Mary whose hands in stead of
gripping to their own chests, outstretched and cared for those around them.
Anointed and healed, and proclaimed that something much bigger, more generous
and more wonderful was coming.
Amen.
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