Being His Hands & Feet
We invited our pastor to our home for dinner. We took him on the grand tour of the home and into our backyard. We recently bought a statute of Jesus to place in a newly installed rock garden area. We apologized that Jesus had no hands. When we purchased it, the hands were missing, but the statutory business promised us they’d get the hands to us asap. We got a great price for it. But, I loved what Pastor said about it without the hands. He quickly responded: “You know why Jesus has no hands? Because WE ARE His hands on this earth!” Obviously, this photo is of the hands put on Jesus with our sweet Tynessa loving on Him. But, Pastor’s comments made good sense to me, especially when I read St. Teresa of Avila’s words:
“Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.” ~ St. Teresa of Ávila
St. Teresa knew scripture because the phrase and her admonition has its roots in I Corinthians 12:27, “For we are members of His body.” Let’s think about that. Wow – we have been grafted into the body of the Perfect One – the very embodiment of LOVE itself. What a responsibility! If I am to be “the hands and feet of Jesus”, then I should begin by doing what Jesus did with his hands and feet. Answer: He loved.
Being the “hands and feet” of Jesus simply means communicating the love of Christ to the people He created. We don’t need to fix all of society’s problems. We just need to love people. “This is how everyone will know that you are my disciples, when you love each other.” John 13:35
Simple, right? So how DO we love people? When was the last time we spoke words of affirmation to those in our sphere of influence? Have we told a co-worker or cashier or janitor how much we appreciate him or her? Have we spoken life to a single mother and told her how amazing she is and what a good job she is doing? When was the last time we spent actual time with people who needed love? I mean, really — ate a meal or enjoyed conversation with them? Jesus dined with sinners, beggars, lepers, AND his friends. He spent TIME with them. When we give our time to people, we demonstrate love to them.
We don’t have to go far to witness the hands and feet of Jesus everywhere, visible in all the subtle instances that we often overlook. They are visible in someone collecting clothes for a homeless shelter or helping at a food pantry or soup kitchen. They are visible when someone takes their sick neighbor some homemade soup. They are visible when someone’s love one passes and they are there to be of comfort. They are visible in the stranger changing a woman’s flat tire. They are visible in the one who hands a lady a few dollars after she realizes she doesn’t have enough to buy her groceries.
Jesus calls us to go into the world and spread the good news. That good news comes in many forms as we become the hands and feet and body of Jesus to our love-needing world. The little acts of service that may seem small in measure are abundant when they are done with love. His love. His hands and feet.