His Hands

I almost lost myself…  

Rationale strung in knots; sentiments tempted to tear.  Sight opposed belief.  Crippling brokenness overwhelmed.  Nihilism overtook.  With clenched fists held high, flailing in the air, “How could this happen to me?!”

I sat destitute with Job beside me.  His arms were raw from boiled flesh.  He was alone and rejected.  His eyes glazed over.  A great man laid to waste.  How did he come to ruin?  What evil did he do that wrought him such suffering?  Oh God how your retribution breaks us…

Across us sat Asaph and Jeremiah, pens in hand, writing passionately on parchment.  Their eyes were full of tears, faces flush with resentment and anger.  Their rags of poverty hung off their limbs.  Are they not His people?  Do they not deserve better?  Oh God how you disappoint us…

David was there, a king with torn garments and seated on dust.  How low he’s become!  Promised the world and brought to ruin.  His face was anxious in vigilance, watchful with fear.  Does not God have good plans for his life?  Yet he lives in caves.  Oh God your plans ruin us…  

Another figure sat there too, amongst the multitude of sun-scorched faces and broken lives.  He sat in the midst of the least, the outcast, the rejected, the impoverished, the disappointed and the lonely.  He was with the broken.  He sat in the midst of death itself.  I didn’t see him at first because he wasn’t much to look at.  I noticed his back… bleeding.  Exploded flesh undressed.  His side was torn.  His body damaged.  I gazed harder and saw his feet, blood stained.  And then I saw his hands… His beautiful Hands, pierced through. 

We gathered together that evening, Job, Asaph, Jeremiah, David, and the throng together.  We ate a meal together.  They called it the meal of remembrance.  It wasn’t fancy.  It was of bread and wine.  We ate the torn bread.  We drank the poured out cup.  We remembered. 

And again I saw His Hands…

And I understood.