When I was a child, my parents often told me “Don’t touch” while walking past shelves in a store filled with toys or glassware of different shapes and colors. Of all seasons, Christmas presented the greatest temptation for a tactile-oriented child like me. But stores weren’t the only problematic places.
My school held a cake sale every year. In second grade, the teacher led the class single-file at recess time past the row of cakes laid out on tables in the hallway. The sizes and shapes, the designs and icings had a magnetic effect on me. I decided to run my hand with fingers spread a few inches above the sugar-coated slabs when that dastardly law of gravity kicked in and my hand plopped right on top a chocolate cake. Honestly, it was an accident! Sticky icing erupted between my fingers. I jerked my hand up and to my horror, a perfect impression was left behind. I had visions of a trip to the principal’s office and a spanking from my parents. Well, I did what a boy had to do. I licked away all traces of evidence as the line continued down the hallway. Fortunately, the classmate behind me never ratted me out, and we were long gone before there was any crime scene investigation.
Hands have gotten a bad rap since the Fall and not just because of little boys like me. We are a cynical species. No wonder the words untouched by human hands or hermetically sealed bring a sense of assurance when printed on the packaging for food and medicine. Even quality control has to be backed up by a warranty card for every gadget we find under the Christmas tree. We’re all too aware of our human foibles in spite of the accomplishments our collective hands have produced over the millennia. In reality, nothing under the sun endures. Even the Acropolis is deteriorating at an alarming rate.
Our jaded outlook isn’t a result of having hands of all thumbs. Our hands are merely an extension of our minds and wills—minds and wills left largely unchecked. Peer inside the titanium casing of our technological Eden and we see that this new millennium will be just as bloody, greedy, and exhausting as the previous one.
Despite our humanness, the God of the universe came to earth as a baby to bring humanity out of the quagmire of sin. It was no mistake. He had to be touched. When the innkeeper’s wife, a midwife, or perhaps Joseph himself, reached to guide the Christ-child’s passage into this world, there was no message attached saying, do not touch. When He became a man, no protective seal surrounded Him.
No, God is the God who allowed Himself to be touched and handled by human hands—calloused hands of a carpenter and inexperienced hands of a teenage mother. Joseph and Mary were simple people for sure but favored by God. But the boy couldn’t stay in their protective custody forever.
Jesus. He was caressed by a mother and slapped by soldiers. Passed among the hands of women, pushed and shoved by an encirclement of the same soldiers. Wiped and bathed as an infant, spit upon as a man. Handed by a father and held up by a feeble priest—dragged before an insecure king. Praised by a prophetess, ridiculed by his own brothers. He played the rough and tumble games of boys but nearly shoved off a cliff by an offended crowd. Pressed by the masses and snuggled up to by children—abandoned by friends. Wept upon by a prostitute and kissed on the feet—betrayed by a friend with a kiss on the cheek. Clothed with simple rags by a loving mother’s hands, stripped and nailed to a cross by our own hands.
God is the God who allowed Himself to be touched and handled by human hands. So, let’s come to Him—sticky hands and all.
© 2010 David Harlen Brooks | All rights reserved.
