Thursday 12th March - Our Hands

DAILY BYTE

When I was confirmed as a member of the church at the age of thirteen, after the other confirmands and I declared our vows, one by one we were asked to kneel. And when it was my turn to be confirmed, my mother, my father, my mentor, and all the other ministers of the church gathered around my tiny frame, and piled their hands on top of me. On my shoulders, my head, my hands, and my back. Almost all at once the gravity of the moment and the embrace of the community fell down on me, and something about me changed.

We might ask the logical question, what could putting your hands on someone while you’re praying actually, physically do? What difference does it really make?

Well, the story in Luke where Jesus heals the woman from her crippling past provides insight into these questions. When Jesus heals the woman, he tells her that she is “set free” from her ailment, but she does not stand up straight and begin praising God until he does one other thing. He lays his hands on her! Healing does not come in the life of this woman, until she feels the physical touch of God, the weight of God’s caring and compassion, on her body.

Healing is what the hands of God can do. But our hands are also the tools we often use to sin. Our hands slap and hit and throw and molest. Our hands write cruel words and create instruments that destroy.

So, perhaps we can see it as redeeming and a part of God’s wisdom and grace that as people who strive to be Christlike, our hands can also hold, comfort, guide, and heal. Our hands write words of love and create instruments of mercy.

As vulnerable human beings, we regularly commit ourselves into the hands of others and into the hands of God. We consult doctors, we are held by loved ones, and are comforted by friends. The popularity of AT&T’s slogan, “Reach out and touch someone” is no accident. As human beings, we have an innate desire to touch others and be touched in life-giving, healing ways.

But sometimes, laying hands on people to heal or pray for them can feel awkward. Asking others to lay hands on you can seem like a strange request. But Jesus shows us through his example, that great healing can come when we commit our bodies and spirits to the caring hands of others and to the hands of God.

Who are you willing to be vulnerable with? Who can you go to for prayer and in trust that someone else can offer part of Christ’s healing touch in your life? What things in your life need to be healed or forgiven?

PRAY AS YOU GO

In the name of God and trusting in his might alone, receive Christ's healing touch to make you whole. May Christ bring you wholeness of body, mind and spirit, deliver you from every evil, and give you his peace. Amen.
– from the Common Worship of the Church of England

FOCUS READING

Luke 13:13

When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.