John 20: 1-19: Acts 5:37-42

What can your hands do?

Dear friends

Today we have our annual encounter with the Thomas story. So I thought I would do something different this time.  Instead of talking about doubt, I want to talk about hands, but in a literal and not-so-literal way.  Thomas refuses to believe that Jesus is among the disciples again after the resurrection. Thomas may be known as the doubting disciple, but he is really not that bad. He has been quite loyal.  Thomas is upset that he wasn’t with the other disciples when they saw Jesus. He insists on seeing Jesus’ hands, ravaged by the nails that put Him on the cross.  Now feet have been in the news lately.  Pope Francis washed people’s feet recently, even the feet of non-Christians which caused a bit of an uproar.  But hands, there is something about hands. Perhaps they are second only to the eyes in being personal.  Perhaps they are second only to the eyes in connecting us to the world around us and to each other.  Hands express so much of who we are.  We use our hands after all to greet people, to attend to people who need care, to prepare food that nourishes us and others.  But we also use our hands to perform decisive acts, but also to pound tables in frustration and anger.  We use our hands to communicate, with a pen, with a keyboard, in sign language. Friends,  let us not underestimate the power and meaning of hands.  I had a friend who once told me that she never forgets a person’s hands.  I had a student on Java who did not have a functioning right hand.  And therefore had to use his left.  The left hand is only used for the bathroom over all.  You never give or receive anything with your left hand.   It was a source of great shame for him.

But Jesus’ hands were even more important.  Those hands were symbolic of so much.  Those hands had blessed people. Those hands had healed people.  Those hands had soothed people and supported people.  Those hands had channeled love to people.  Those hands had been raised in praise. But more than anything those hands had experienced the frightening suffering of the cross.

Friends, if you have ever seen a severe injury to a hand, you realize how personal a hand is.

But sometimes, friends, we have to change what we do with our hands. This could be because of severe arthritis or there is no more need for us to do a job we were doing or just because we lost energy or strength.  We may even be known for what we can do with our hands: repair teeth, putt golf balls, paint canvases, sculpt stone, mold pottery, weld metal, make stained glass, fix cars, write stories.  At one point or another we will have to change what we do with our hands.  Friends, what can you with your hands?

Let us fast forward to the book of Acts.  Jesus is no longer physically among his disciples. His hands are gone from sight.  The disciples, now apostles, have become the hands of Jesus to the world.  In the verses of the week we see and hear them at work.  They are facing angry opposition from the authorities.  They are spreading the message of Jesus.  The authorities want Jesus dead and buried.  The authorities want to move the apostles out of the public limelight.  No longer are there apostles who follow and help Jesus.  Their task has changed. Now they are leaders.  Different tasks were demanded of their hands.

Friends,  our tasks change.  Our hands do different things.  Often that is a bad thing or a sad thing.  Sometimes it is a good thing.   Sometimes a person who couldn’t before can get a job because a Rosa parks sat down and a Martin Luther King Jr. kept walking.  Perhaps soon a gay wedding coordinator instead on arranging the bows on the pews for someone else’s wedding can slip a ring on a finger of a man he loves.  Perhaps one day undocumented youths born in this country can come out of the shadows and make money legally.  Perhaps the unemployed fifty-something year old can be reschooled and go to work again soon finally.  Perhaps citizens of both Korea’s will be able to turn swords and rockets into plowshares finally.  Perhaps the car bomb makers of Iraq and Syria will make school desks and restock hospitals one day.   Perhaps people who have spent a lifetime thinking only of themselves will use their hands in service of those less fortunate.  Hands will do different things, tasks will change.   Sometimes people will even learn to use their feet and their mouths as hands to create, to write, to paint. Friends, the way the world is going, our hands will no longer do one thing all our lives.  Teachers will stop writing on boards, surgeons will operate in radically new ways, hands will use computers in a thousand new ways.  Friends, our world will be about constant retooling, redesigning, revisioning.  That is what the apostles had to two thousand years ago.   That is what we must do.  Friends, what will you use your hands for in the years to come?  How will you serve others and your God? How will you retool?  What can your hands do?  May God use them.  Thanks be to God.