Because we bear your name April–May 2024

‘People were bringing even infants to Jesus that he might touch them; and when the disciples saw it, they sternly ordered them not to do it. But Jesus called for them and said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them, for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it”’ (Luke 18:15–17).

Our hands can be crushed into a fist, or our hands can be opened for a wave ‘hello’. Our hands can be used to violently strike, or they can be opened to gently cradle someone.

In Luke’s Gospel, we read of the Lord Jesus ‘touching’ children. In this 21st-century post-Royal Commission era of caution, we hear those words about ‘touching’ as potentially problematic. But in his action of placing his hands on little children, our Lord was showing his desire to bless them.

The experience of children in ancient Israel was so very different to the experience of children in modern-day New Zealand or Australia. At the time of Jesus, children were considered a gift from God, but children were also ranked very low in their society. The disciples thought they were doing the Lord a favour by keeping any potentially ‘unclean’ children away from him.

When the Lord blesses little children by placing his hands directly upon them in this way, he is declaring God’s heart and God’s way of using hands to do good for others.

Throughout the gospels in the New Testament, we are told how the Lord blessed outcasts and the ritually unclean by placing hands of compassion upon them. Often people around Jesus were shocked at the way he blessed people with his hands. Even when his hands are nailed to the cross with his palms opened to the world, our Lord still expresses his gracious heart praying, ‘Father, forgive them’.

Our risen Lord continues to bless others through our hands. Roman Catholic Mystic writer Teresa of Avila, who lived at the same time as Martin Luther, wrote a poem about ‘Christian hands’:

‘Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world.’

In verse six of the song for which this column is named – ‘Because we bear your name’ – Dr John Kleinig, who wrote the lyrics and Dr Robin Mann, who wrote the music, also encourage us to use our hands in service of others:

‘Keep us from missing out on life; give hands that help, and single sight, and feet that walk your way – because we bear your name.’

In our modern world, many use their hands contrary to God’s heart. This edition of The Lutheran includes some difficult storytelling of ways in which people have used their hands to do harm to others, including to members of their own families.

We do not despair but call on the Lord of the cross and empty grave to change human hearts, including our own. In our Sunday liturgy we are reminded to regularly pray:

‘Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and put a new and right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit’ (Psalm 51).

In Christ,
Paul

‘Lord Jesus, we belong to you,
you live in us, we live in you;
we live and work for you –
because we bear your name’