Reading: Luke 23:44-49
"Father, into your hands I commend my spirit." Luke 23:46
Siegfried liked to draw hands. Look again at all the hands in the pictures we've been following
around the thorn bramble. Look especially at the hands of the risen Christ.
Though death is clearly behind him, the scars on his hands (and the other scars too) remain.
They do not disappear at Easter. Why not? Because they now are the marks of victory, not
defeat. Though once dead (the scars verify that) he now lives. That highpoint of his life and
work is forever imprinted in his hands.
Pause now for a moment to look at your own hands. How much of your own life's history can
you read there? What stories are written on your hands--the scars, the callouses (or their
absence), the bent fingers, the fingernails (chewed or blackened), the hangnails, the rings on the
fingers (or their absence), the finger-joints, the wrinkles, the moles, the visible veins.
When Jesus puts his life into his Father's hand, it is a prelude to his offering that life to us,
handing it over to us. When he offers us his hand, encouraging us to clasp his in ours, the two
whole lives written in those two hands are joined, and even better, exchanged. His scars for ours
-- but with one significant difference. Our scars signal the mortality still ahead of us. His scars
have death already behind them. Can that really be swapped when he offers his scarred hand to
us? He says so. What a swell swap!
Prayer: (from the Collect for Good Friday) Lord Jesus, you carried our sins in your own body
on the tree so that we might have life. May we and all whom we remember this day find new life
in you now and in the world to come, where you live and reign with the Father and the Holy
Spirit, now and forever. Amen.
"Father, into your hands I commend my spirit." Luke 23:46
Siegfried liked to draw hands. Look again at all the hands in the pictures we've been following
around the thorn bramble. Look especially at the hands of the risen Christ.
Though death is clearly behind him, the scars on his hands (and the other scars too) remain.
They do not disappear at Easter. Why not? Because they now are the marks of victory, not
defeat. Though once dead (the scars verify that) he now lives. That highpoint of his life and
work is forever imprinted in his hands.
Pause now for a moment to look at your own hands. How much of your own life's history can
you read there? What stories are written on your hands--the scars, the callouses (or their
absence), the bent fingers, the fingernails (chewed or blackened), the hangnails, the rings on the
fingers (or their absence), the finger-joints, the wrinkles, the moles, the visible veins.
When Jesus puts his life into his Father's hand, it is a prelude to his offering that life to us,
handing it over to us. When he offers us his hand, encouraging us to clasp his in ours, the two
whole lives written in those two hands are joined, and even better, exchanged. His scars for ours
-- but with one significant difference. Our scars signal the mortality still ahead of us. His scars
have death already behind them. Can that really be swapped when he offers his scarred hand to
us? He says so. What a swell swap!
Prayer: (from the Collect for Good Friday) Lord Jesus, you carried our sins in your own body
on the tree so that we might have life. May we and all whom we remember this day find new life
in you now and in the world to come, where you live and reign with the Father and the Holy
Spirit, now and forever. Amen.
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