The Hands & Feet Of Christ

One of the many beautiful phrases used in Christian liturgy and worship is that those of us who strive to follow Jesus are "the hands and feet of Christ."  

While I have loved this phrase and have employed it more than once in sermons and writings, it occurs to me that it deserves a closer examination, and perhaps a bit of imagination as well to fully comprehend just how important and vital it is.  

The notion that we are the hands and feet of Christ, who we understand to be present in the world as Spirit, is one that theologians and church leaders have wrestled with for two millennia.  But it is the mystics who give us the poetry to imagine Christ more fully.  

The 14th-century Christian mystic Teresa of Avila once wrote: 

"Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours..."

I suppose for me, the question about what it meant to be the hands and feet of Christ has always come down to "Why?"  Why would an all-powerful being even need to have tangible hands and feet?  Why would God want to use us?

I have come to believe that the simplest answer to this is "Joy."  I believe that it brings God joy to experience the world through us, particularly when our actions in the world are the work of God's Kingdom, characterized by renewal, reconciliation, and resurrection.  

Perhaps the greatest argument for this is the mystery of the Incarnation, the Christian belief that states that God chose to become one of us (through Jesus) to rescue all of us.  And through the Incarnation, God was able to experience the breadth of human sensation.  

Author Elizabeth Gilbert wrote the following in her book "Eat, Pray, Love:"

“So I stood up and did a handstand on my Guru's roof, to celebrate the notion of liberation. I felt the dusty tiles under my hands. I felt my own strength and balance. I felt the easy night breeze on the palms of my bare feet. This kind of thing -- a spontaneous handstand--isn't something a disembodied cool blue soul can do, but a human being can do it. We have hands; we can stand on them if we want to. That's our privilege. That's the joy of a mortal body. And that's why God needs us. Because God loves to feel things through our hands. ”

I love the last line of that quote: "Because God loves to feel things through our hands."  

While I believe there is a deeper meaning to the Incarnation and to our role as the hands and feet of God in Christ, there is also significance in God's experience of the world through us.  

When we experience the wonder of the world through our senses, we often feel joy, which comes from deep within us.  It's the kind of joy that comes from watching a spectacular sunset, feeling the earth in our hands as we plant flowers, hearing the songbirds in the morning, and smelling woodsmoke on the wind on a crisp, clear day.  

What speaks to us in those moments is something deep within our souls, a feeling that has been imprinted upon us, a sense of the Divine within us, rejoicing at each and every wonder-filled experience of the world.  

And if all of this can be true, then the converse is also true.  God aches with us, when we ache, feels sorrow when we feel sorrowful, weeps with us when we weep.  

I believe that God is present in this world, and the Spirit of God moves around, in, and through us. We make the presence of God tangible.  And when we come to know this, we also begin to see the world and ourselves much differently; more lovingly, with open hearts and minds. 

May you learn what it means to make the Divine tangible through you, recognizing that you are not only created in the image of God, but you contain a Divine spark within you, a spark that merely needs your assent to be fanned into a flame that illuminates the world.  

May it be so, and may the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you now and always. Amen.