Easter 3 (NL3) John B. Valentine
Luke 24:35-53 May 4, 2025

“YOU CAN SEE IT IN HIS HANDS”

Question for you:

• How many of you folks are on TikTok?

• And how many of you have ever looked at TikTok?

• And how many of you folks have only heard of TikTok because the government apparently wants to get TikTok out of the hands of the Chinese government?

• And how many of you have absolutely no clue what I’m talking about???

TikTok ..... is a social media platform that is extremely popular among the under-25 crowd ... i.e. it’s something that you look at on your cell phone.

TikTok hosts videos and video clips and the like ... and gets people interacting with ideas and images and influencers and the like.

TikTok is all about dance routines and fitness challenges and beauty advice and stuff like that.

But ... somehow ... one of the hottest topics ... the most viral ideas ... the most talked-about topics on that social media platform over the past couple of years has been Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

I kid you not! A particular scene from a particular movie version of a two-centuries-old novel was one of the most talked-about topics on TikTok!

The particular movie version being the 2005 rendition with Keira Knightley in it ... “not even the best version” ... according to the Jane Austen fan in our house.

The particular scene from that movie being Mister Darcy’s ‘hand-flex’ wherein ... after he helps Elizabeth Bennett into her carriage ... and then releases her hand ...

He subtly flexes his fingers ... as if to acknowledge the physical attraction and growing affection that he feels for her ... even if he won’t admit it.

The long-and-short of it being a whole bunch of twenty-something-year-old women set to clamoring that you can’t help but KNOW that Mister Darcy is attracted to ... even ‘obsessed with’ ... Elizabeth because “You can see it in his hands.”

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“You can see it in his hands.”

That might not be a bad title for this morning’s gospel lesson ... “You Can See It in His Hands.”

How was it that those closing verses of Luke’s gospel went??

It’s a few days after Jesus’ crucifixion ... and both his friends and his disciples are trying to sort out these reports they’ve been receiving about appearances of the risen Christ ... and what it all means.

• And some of them sort of figure that it must have been a hoax ... and that somebody somehow was playing a dirty trick on them amid their sorrow and their grief.

• And others of them ... Luke tells us ... assumed that what they’d seen must have been a ghost.

But then ... suddenly ... it happens. BAM! Jesus himself is standing there in their midst ..... and saying “Peace be with you!”

And ... as if to convey a sense of that very peace that he has just orally offered to them ... Jesus that says what?

“Why are you frightened? Why are you doubt-full? Look at my hands and my feet. See that it is really me. Touch me! Look at me! Does this feel like a ‘ghost’ to you?”

And it’s only then that these followers of Jesus “disbelieve with joy!”

And thus begin to process in their hearts and minds that this really IS Jesus ... that he really IS alive ... and begin ... just begin ... to realize that this unbelievable news is unbelievably good news for them.

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Speaking of things that you can see in one’s hands ... when you were growing up ...

Did any of you live in fear of the phrase ... "Young man ... or ‘young woman' ... look at your hands!"???

Every family system had ... and/or has ... some secret code-language wherein the parents let the kids know that their goose is cooked.

A statement that your mother might make ... or maybe a question that your father might ask ... that would let you know in no uncertain terms that you were in deep DEEP trouble ...

• Maybe it was hearing your full given name recited in staccato fashion ... John Babbage Valentine ...

• Maybe it was the declaration “Wait ‘til your father gets home” ...

• Maybe it was simply the question “Just what do you think that you’re doing .....?”

My mom pulled any of a number of those out during the course of my childhood ... to be sure ....

But I think ... more than any of them ... the words which let me know my goose was cooked were these: “Young man ... look at your hands!”

It might have been because I was one of those kids who was always into everything ... who just couldn’t “look” without “touching” ...

It might have been simply because I was enough of a klutz that my hands always bore the traces of my guilt.

But ...whatever the reason ... the words “Young man ... look at your hands!” ... were inevitably both an observation of guilt and a precursor to some sort of punishment.

GUILT was something that my Mom could clearly see in my hands.

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But maybe guilt ... in my case ... and attraction ... in Mister Darcy’s case ... aren’t the ONLY things that can be perceived by looking at someone’s hands.

No ... there’s an old Russian legend about an Emperor and an Empress who wished to honor the members of their court with a banquet.

As the story goes ... the Czar and the Czarina ... sent out invitations to this banquet and requested that the guests come to the festivities with the invitations in their hands.

But when the guests arrived at the banquet ... they were surprised to discover that the captain of the guard at the entrance didn’t look at their invitations at all.

Rather ... he examined their hands.

The guests wondered about why this was ... and they were also curious to see whom that evening would be chosen to sit as the guest of honor in the seat between the royal couple.

But ... to a person ... they were flabbergasted when an elderly scrub-woman who’d worked for most of her life keeping the palace clean was ushered up to the seat of honor.

For the captain ... having looked at the old woman’s hands ... had announced: “You ... madam ... have the proper credentials to be the guest of honor. I can see the spirit of SERVICE and LOYALTY written all over your hands.”

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What message was it that the sight of Jesus’ hands communicated to those folks in that encounter we heard read in this morning’s lesson?

What was it that they saw ... and why was it that what they saw was so unbelievable??

I suspect you know this answer folks ... don’t you??

It was LOVE.

What was written all over Jesus’s hands was unbelievable ... and unbelievably generous ... love ... was it not???

For ... when they looked at those hands ... they saw the nail-prints that had held his body to the cross ...

And it began to dawn on those ... his first friends and followers ... that those nail-prints actually meant that God loved the world so much that God sent his Son to die ... not for what He had done ... but for what they ... and by extension WE ... have done to him.

It may well be that we ... on occasion ... have trouble actually believing that God could care that much ...

But Jesus’ hands would beg to differ.

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Any of you ever been to Molokai?

That relatively unpopulated island between Maui and Oahu ...

Now ... if you’ve ever been to Molokai ... you probably recall that ... in the year 1873 ... a certain Belgian priest ... by the name of Father Damien ... was sent by his superiors to minister to the population of a leper colony that had been established there.

Such that ... when Father Damien arrived on Molokai ... he immediately began to meeting each of the six-hundred-plus lepers who resided there ... in hopes of establishing friendships and relationships.

But wherever he turned ... the people of the leper colony shunned him.

Even though Father Damien poured his life into his calling ...

• opening a chapel ...
• offering worship services ...
• pouring his heart out in service to the lepers ...

None of it seemed to have any effect.

And after twelve years of thankless service in that community ... he made the decision to abandon his calling and return home.

Dejectedly ... on the day of his return voyage ... he made his way back to the dock to board the ship that was to take him to Belgium.

And there he stood on the dock wringing his hands nervously as he thought of his decision and those he was leaving behind ...

When ... looking down at his hands ... he noticed that they were covered with tiny white spots ... and that they felt strangely numb ... and immediately he realized that he had contracted leprosy ...

And knowing that he’d contracted the death sentence of those among whom he served ... he realized that he could do nothing but return to the leper colony and return to his work.

But that day the most amazing thing happened.

Word traveled throughout the colony of what had happened to the priest.

And within hours ... hundreds of the lepers had gathered outside his hut to share his pain, his uncertainty and his fear.

And the next Sunday ... when he arrived at worship at his tiny chapel ... he found nearly the whole of the community was already there.

And it was there that Father Damien served until his death some three or four years later.

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Now ... let me ask you ... what was really different about Father Damien from the week before he’d contracted leprosy and the week after?

Did Father Damien change that much from one week to the next???

Probably not.

Did the community’s perception of him change???

Absolutely!

∙ Because they could look at his hands and see the lengths to which he cared.

∙ Because they could look at his hands and see that he was one of them.

∙ Because they could look at his hands and see what his love for them had brought upon himself.

Even as ... if you’ll but look to the hands of Jesus ... you’ll know EXACTLY how much he cares about you!