Youth: Jesus' Hands

And I enjoyed what your team picked about Thomas. It actually fits in with what I'm going to talk about right now, because, you know, if you imagine what it was like for Thomas as he was standing in the upper room, or in that room with all the other disciples, and he was saying, "I am not going to believe it." And all of them have said, "We've seen him. We know it's real." "I'm not going to believe it until I can touch his hands, until I can reach and touch his side, until I can touch his feet." And as he's saying that, the disciples' faces are just going, and he says, "What? What is it?" He said, "He's right behind me, isn't he?" And Thomas turns around and there's Jesus. And Thomas falls to his knees and he begs for forgiveness. And you know what's really amazing about Jesus is Jesus does not smack him on the head and say, "What's wrong with you, Thomas? Why couldn't you believe the other disciples?" Jesus just reaches His hands out and says, "Go ahead. You want to touch Him?" Thomas says, "No." And he's crying. He says, "You want to touch my feet?" He says, "No, I believe." And Jesus does the same thing for us. You know, Jesus actually said something to Thomas right then that's very interesting. He looks at Thomas and then he says something to you and to me. He looks at Thomas and he says, "Thomas, you believe me because you've seen me. But even more blessed are the people who believe in me who haven't seen me." And that's us. We haven't seen Jesus. We haven't walked with Him for 3.5 years. We haven't seen Him after His resurrection. We just take it on faith that the record of the disciples, the Gospels, is true. And Jesus actually said something about you and me. He said, "More blessed are they who without seeing Me have believed." That's you and that's me. I had a friend named Brian who was really into rock climbing. And he told me about when he was learning that one of his friends, the friend who was teaching him, took him to this place to climb. It was about a 60-meter climb, and they put pins in. This rig went up and he put the pins in and he wound the rope through and everything, and he got to the top and he told Brian before he climbed up, he said, "About 20 meters up, there's a crevice that," he said, "even with your reach," and Brian was 6'4" and really long and lanky, he said, "even with your reach, you will not be able to reach over and get that handhold, but it's there, and you can see the chalk marks," "all you have to do is just jump over there and grab and you'll get it." And so Brian watched his friend climb and he watched him when he got there and he made the leap and he caught it, climbed the rest of the way up and then his friend yelled down, "Okay, I'm ready." So Brian started climbing. He's climbing up and his fingers are getting really sore and he hasn't climbed something this high ever before. And he gets to the 20-meter mark and he gets to that crevice and he looks across and he thinks, "I'm wider than my friend is. I can reach it." And so he leans right out and he tries He tries to reach it, but he can't get enough grip, and he realizes if he lets go, he's going to swing and he's going to fall. And so he realizes he has to leap. He has to leave the face of the rock and jump across and grab on. And so he gets himself ready, and he puts some more chalk on his hands, and he lets his body rest for a bit, and he yells up at his friend, "Okay, I'm going for the jump!" And then he does it. He leaves the rock face and jumps across, and he grabs the handhold, and then he slips and he falls. But he knows, because he's got the harness on and the rope around him and his friend's up at the top belaying him, he knows that he's going to stop falling. And so he hits the end of the rope, and normally what would happen, it would go tight, and he'd swing in and hit against the wall, but he wouldn't fall and die. But he doesn't stop. He slows right down, but he just keeps falling. And as Brian is falling, he realizes something's wrong because his friend hasn't stopped him, but he's also not free falling. And when Brian hits the bottom, somebody down in the valley saw Brian falling, and so they called the emergency services, and a helicop— helicopter ambulance came in and they landed up at the top and then they— somebody came down and they got Brian and they took him up to the top. But they came and they took Brian, but they didn't take Brian to the hospital, they took his friend. Because the guy that was up at the top of the mountain, he thought he'd done everything right with the ropes. He thought he put it through the system correctly and when he locked off, because he said, "Oh, Brian's fallen," and he pulled in the rope, it didn't stop. And he didn't know then what he'd done wrong, and he couldn't stop and check his knots or whatever. It was too late. Brian was falling. And so his friend just pulled the rope in as hard as he could against himself and grabbed it as hard as he could with his hands and leaned back against the rope to slow Brian down. And Brian was falling and falling and falling and faster and faster, and so he had to squeeze harder. And when the ambulance came, the helicopter came and took him away, all of the skin on the inside of his fingers was gone. Both hands. And all of the muscles and all of the All of the tendons, everything except for bone was gone on the insides of his hands. And they did as much as they could, you know, reconstructive surgery and put skin on there and everything, but he could never close his hands fully again. He could never really use his hands the way that we use our hands. And Brian was telling me this story and he said, "You know, I would do anything for that guy. If he called me right now and said—" and we were in the Marshall Islands as student missionaries. He said, "If he called me right now from Canada and said, 'Come home, I need you,'" he said, "I'd be on the next flight." and I'd be home because he gave his hands for me. He saved my life. He said, but it's really one thing that's really frustrating for me and makes me feel guilty is he said when he's talking, he gestures with his hands and I see the scars. He said when he eats, he's eating with his hands, you know, and he's picking up a sandwich or whatever. He said, I'm always seeing his hands. And he said, and every time I see his hands, I remember what he did for me. And it brings that pain back to me again to think I'm sorry you had to go through so much for me. And he always just says, "Ah, don't worry about it. That's just gone. I'm glad you're alive." He said, "But to me it's just every time I see His hands I remember." And you know, when Jesus showed His hands to Thomas, those scars are still there. Jesus keeps them. You know, when we're resurrected we get new bodies, but Jesus kept those scars. Why? Because He wants us, when we get to heaven, to be able to walk up and say, "I believe, help my unbelief." And Jesus can reach His hands out and show us, and we can see the scars in His hands. But I think there's another reason as well, and it comes from my understanding of Brian's story, is Jesus wants us to be remembering for the rest of eternity. Now it says in the Bible that they'll never sin again when they go to the new earth. You think, what about after a billion, billion, billion years and some kid goes, "I just wonder what it would be like." No, because every time we see Jesus, we're gonna see the scars again, and it's gonna remind us that He grabbed the rope for us, that He made it so that, yes, we fall, but when we land, we don't die because Jesus died in our place. And those scars are gonna be there for eternity in His hands and His feet, and we're gonna be able to sit at His feet and ask Him to tell us the story again. We're gonna be able to ask Thomas to tell us the story, and Peter, and James, and John, and the story and the His scars will remind us, and there will never be sin again because Jesus has kept those marks in His hands for you and for me. I don't know if that's a powerful thing for you to think about, but Jesus did that for us for eternity. Gave our life— His life for us and keeps the scars so that we will always be His. Let's bow our heads and have a prayer together. Dear Lord, we thank You for this beautiful day and for the good time we've had here, and we just ask that You be with us now As we make our way to the barbecue, help us to remember that you've done so much for us, and help us to do as much as we can for others, so that they too one day can sit at your feet and hear the story and see the scars and know how very, very, very loved we each are. In your name, amen. Thank you.