Those Hands

I try to hold my mother's hands as often as possible.  There are 93 years of character etched into those beautiful hands.  One day, I will hold them no longer and I want their memory to be etched onto my heart.  She held my hands, as a baby, and now I have the privilege of holding hers.

What was it like for Mary?  What was it like for her to hold Jesus' tiny hand in hers, at His birth; to have Him curl His little fingers around one of hers, in that sweet baby-pose; to hold His hand as they walked through the little town of Bethlehem?  Mary, holding his hand ever-so-tightly, so that He did not fall.  And then, in the middle of the night, she had to take Him up in her arms and flee for their very lives.  Jesus, Mary, and Joseph - refugees.  Escaping to Egypt.  At night.  And Jesus was two years old. (Matthew 2:13,14,16)

Their return,(Matthew 2:15), was prophesied in Hosea 11:1 "Out of Egypt have I called my Son."  But this had actually happened before; to a different son.  God called the nation of Israel, "my son," in Hosea's prophecy. And now, hundreds of years later, it is Jesus who is spoken about, in the same prophecy.  I am fascinated by these mountain-peak vistas in the bible.  At once, looking back to a crucial point in salvation-history and yet also looking ahead to Jesus Christ.

In the first instance, Moses, humbled by his time as a shepherd in the wilderness, led the nation out of Egypt; that mass exodus of close to a million people who had been slaves to the Pharaoh,(Exodus 12:40,41).  And then Jesus, "...being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."(Philippians 2:8).  He was lead out of Egypt to become the Saviour of the world; leading countless numbers of people out of the slavery of sin and into His righteousness.  I cannot imagine anything more humbling - God becoming flesh.

What was it like for Mary; knowing  that her son who would be born was the Son of God, (Luke 1:35)? Jesus in the womb of Mary; taking on human form, walking with His mother hand-in-hand.  The little boy's hands that she held at His birth would soon enough be nailed to a cross.  His death would be for her, (Luke 1:47); and for me, and for you.

Jesus had allowed humanity to handle Him:  "What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld and our hands handled concerning the Word of Life,"(1 John 1:1).

Hands held Him: at His birth, in His mother's arms; at His death, nailed to a cross by Roman soldiers; at His burial, having been taken down from the cross by two believing Pharisees; at His resurrection, where Mary Magdalene held onto Him, and Thomas was told to put his finger in the nail-prints and place his hand in Jesus' riven side.

I thank God for this greatest of gifts, celebrated at Christmas-time.  Jesus' little hands eventually stretched out to encompass the world; offering forgiveness of sin through His life, death and resurrection.  I thank God He called His son out of Egypt.  I thank God those hands are forever etched with the imprint of the nails; those hands that I will one day see.