Luke 24:39

THE HANDS OF THE RISEN CHRIST

‘Behold My hands.’

Luke 24:39

No doubt the first reason why Christ showed His Hands was to prove that He was the very same Jesus Who had been crucified.

I. They were pitiful Hands.—Those Hands had blessed the children. Those Hands had touched the leper. Those Hands had multiplied the loaves. Those Hands had healed the sick.

II. They were powerful Hands.—The Good Shepherd says of His sheep, ‘No one shall pluck them out of My Hand’ (John 10:28). May we live day by day upheld by those Hands, and fall at last like tired children into those Everlasting Arms, which are soft as love and stronger than death!

III. They were pierced Hands.—You can tell the true Christ by the holes in His Hands. The true Christ is the Sin-bearer. ‘The sting of death is sin’ (1 Corinthians 15:56). The ‘Te Deum’ is a translation from the Latin, and in the verse ‘When Thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death, Thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers,’ the Latin is, “When Thou hadst overcome the sting of death,’ with a reference no doubt to the words of St. Paul, ‘The sting of death is sin.’ And who can tell the exceeding sinfulness of sin to pierce those sacred Hands?

IV. They were pleading Hands.—His disciples would remember how those Hands had been uplifted in intercession all through His earthly life.

—Rev. F. Harper.

Illustration

‘Love is full of service. It is tireless in its ministry. It is always giving itself away, expending itself on others. What will not the mother do for her child, what the true wife for her husband? Let the recollection of our childhood tell. We have seen many a pearly hand, whose whiteness rivalled the gems it wore, but the hands that live most in our recollection are the thin, worn, wrinkled hands of a mother—the dear weariless hands—without ornament, save the one plain gold ring worn through all the years from marriage-day to burial-day. What have these hands not done for us? They have lifted us up and laid us down. They fed us, and dressed us, and soothed us, and caressed us. It was love that made them active: it was love that made them tireless. And now that they are folded in everlasting rest, they still live in vision with us till we clasp them once more on the everlasting shore.’