"He Knows the Wounds of Humanity. His Hands Prove It"

He knows the wounds of humanity. His hands prove it.

“Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. . .” Isaiah 49:16 ESV 

As I was reading this scripture, I thought of the quote Philip Yancey used in quoting Newton that spoke so openly of Jesus – “He knows the wounds of humanity. His hands prove it.”

Isaac Newton said, "In the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God's existence." Noted surgeon and author, Paul Brand, stated that after 40 years as a surgeon specializing in hands, I am tempted to agree [with Isaac Newton]. Nothing in all nature rivals the hand's combination of strength and agility, tolerance and sensitivity. We use our hands for the most wonderful activities: amazing works of art, masterpieces of music, inspirational writing, healing, holding our precious children, touching the cheeks of those we love . . . I could go on, but you get the idea.

My hands were severely injured in years past and I have had several surgeries to correct those injuries.  There are numerous wires, rods, screws, and pins holding my hands and forearm together and those surgeries required immobilizing plaster and fiberglass casts to be worn each time, sometimes as long as six to nine months.  So, I do know the importance of having full use of one’s hands.

When people go to concerts and athletic events, they pay to watch a performance; they listen to the music or watch the show.  But if you pay attention to detail as I do, you may watch hands. A piano performance becomes a ballet of fingers—a magnificent little part of our body. When I was young, I was a drummer in band. On stage, I always watched the movements of all the hands playing the various instruments.

Dr. Brand had stated that, unless you have tried to reproduce just one small twitch of the hand mechanically, you cannot fully appreciate its movements. He would often have his medical students or surgeons analyze the motion of one finger. He would hold before them a dissected cadaver hand, with its trailing strands of sinew, and announce that he would move the tip of the little finger.

To do so, he would place the cadaver hand on a table, sorting through the tangle of tendons and muscles sharing with the students that it takes seventy separate muscles to contribute to hand movements. I was amazed as I read how the dexterity and slimness for actions such as piano playing, were caused by tendons transferring the force from muscles higher in the arm, because the finger has no muscle in itself.  He did all of these demonstrations with a cadaver hand to illustrate ways to repair a hand surgically. In more than 40 years of and more than 10,000 hand surgeries, he never found a single technique to improve a normal, healthy hand.

Based on Dr. Brand’s illustration and professional medical opinions, you can see why he and why I, after studying through the work of the hands, certainly agree with Isaac Newton. There have been mechanical marvels when it comes to prosthetics and the advances modern medicine has made with artificial mobility but, even with all of science, those medical devices are merely like a Play Doh sculpture compared to a Michelangelo masterpiece when it comes to the masterpiece of our hands.

It is no wonder then that for me, as a Christian, during this, the most solemn week of Christendom, in addition to reflecting on Christ’s supreme sacrifice for each of us, I reflect on the hands of Jesus.

Painters down through the ages have attempted to visualize the face of Jesus Christ on canvas; I try to visualize his hands. I can just imagine his hands at various stages of his life. When God's Son entered the world in the form of a human body, what were his hands like?

It is difficult for one to conceive of our God taking on the form of an infant, but our faith declares that he once had the tiny, soft, pink hands of a newborn. G. K. Chesterton expressed the paradox this way, 'The hands that had made the sun and stars were too small to reach the huge heads of the cattle." His hands were once too small to change his own clothes or put food in his mouth. Just like every other baby, he had miniature fingernails, little wrinkles around his knuckles, and skin so soft skin that had not known abrasion or roughness. God's Son experienced infant helplessness.

My dad, among other things was also quite a carpenter, so it is easy for me to imagine that Jesus, as an adolescent, learned that trade in his father's shop. The skin on his hands must have developed many calluses and tender spots.

Once he began his earthly ministry, he had the hands of Christ the physician. The Bible tells us strength flowed from them when he healed people. He preferred to perform his miracles one by one, touching each person he healed, not en mass.

Jesus touched eyes that had dried out and they suddenly became alive again and admitted light and color once more. When he once he touched a woman who suffered with a hemorrhage, he knew that Jewish law forbade it lest he would become unclean, but he did it anyway. He touched her. He healed and he touched those with leprosy—people who no one else would touch or come near. In small and very personal ways, his hands made right that which had been disrupted during creation.

Of course, the most important scene in Jesus' life—the one we memorialize most during Passion Week— involved his hands. Those hands that had done so much good were taken, one at a time, and pierced through with a six-inch thick spike. It is mind boggling to visualize this scene.

Dr. Brand  indicated to Yancey that, during surgery he would cut delicately, using scalpel blades that slice through one layer of tissue at a time, to expose the intricacies of nerves and blood vessels and tiny bones and tendons and muscles inside. He knows well what crucifixion must have done to a human hand.

“Roman executioners drove their spikes through the wrist, right through the carpal tunnel that houses finger-controlling tendons and the median nerve. It is impossible to force a spike there without maiming the hand into a claw shape. And Jesus had no anesthetic as his hands were marred and destroyed.” [Brand]

In my finite mind, it is nearly impossible for me to visualize his weight hanging from them, tearing his tissue, releasing his blood. Has there ever been a more helpless image than that of the Son of God hanging paralyzed from a tree? His disciples, who had believed he was the promised One, the Messiah, cowered in the darkness or hid away.

However, that is not the last glimpse of Jesus’ hands in the New Testament scripture. He appeared again, in a closed room, just as Thomas (who was one of his disciples) was disputing the unlikely story he thought his friends had made up. People do not rise from the dead he [Thomas] retorted sarcastically. He declared that they had seen a ghost, or an illusion.

But imagine Thomas‘ surprise, when Jesus appeared and unmistakingly held up his hands for Thomas and the others to see.  They belonged to him, the same one who had died on the cross. Although his body had been changed in certain ways, his scars remained. Jesus even invited Thomas to come and touch them with his own fingers.

Thomas then responded simply, "My Lord and my God!"  It is important to note that this is first recorded entry that one of Jesus' disciples directly addressed him as God. Most importantly, this assertion came in response to visualizing Jesus wounds -  Jesus' hands.

Throughout all of history, millions of people have had faith to cling to the belief that there is a God who understands all human dilemma; that pain we endure on this earth is not meaningless. Our prayers are being heard. In passion, as followers of Christ, we focus on the supreme event when God demonstrated for all time that he knows our pain.

As a reminder of his time on earth, Jesus chose scars in each hand as the prophet Isaiah had said. “ I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. . .” Isaiah 49:16 ESV.  What I have written is a large part of why I believe God hears and understands our pain, like no other—because he kept those scars as a lasting image of our wounded humanity. He knows what life on earth is like. He understands because he has been here. His hands prove it.