8. THE HANDS OF THE HEAD Based on Mark 6:1-6

Albrecht Durer was the son of a Hungarian goldsmith

who wanted to study art. He could not do so, however,

because his father had a large family and had the well known

problem of too much month left at the end of the money.

Finally, however, his father let him go to try and struggle

through on his own. He found an older man who was also

trying to become an artist, but was poor like himself. They

became friends and lived together, and studied together. It

was a discouraging business, and they were getting nowhere.

The older friend said to Durer, "One of us should make a

living for both of us while the other studies. After a while

this process can be reversed."

Durer agreed to the plan and volunteered to be the first to

work, but the friend insisted since he had a chance to work in

a restaurant he would begin. This older friend washed

dishes, scrubbed floors, and spent many hours at menial

labor to help Durer. At last Durer sold one of his wood

cravings and came home with the money. He told his friend

it was his turn. The older man tried to paint, but his muscles

were stiff, and his joints were enlarged. He just didn't have

the touch. His hands were working hands, and not artist

hands.

One day Durer saw his friends hands folded reverently

and said, "I will paint your hands as they are now, folded in

prayer, so the world will know my appreciation for your

noble, unselfish character." Those hands became the famous

praying hands so popular as modern symbols. Few people

realize, however, that the hands symbolize more than prayer.

They stand also for dignified labor and dedicated love.

These hands could very well represent the hands of Jesus,

the Head of the church, for no hands have ever more

worthily expressed the dignity of labor and the dedication of

love. We could look at each of these separately, but it would

be an artificial division, for labor and love went hand in hand

in the life of Christ. One of the big questions of Bible

students has always been, what did Jesus do from age 12 to

30? There are 18 years of silence where nothing is recorded

of His life. We have one statement in our text, however, that

shatters that silence with a loud revelation, and gives us an

answer to the question-

What was He doing all the time?

From boyhood then to early prime?

The answer is, He was working with His hands. He was a

carpenter. When Jesus came back to His hometown of

Nazareth where He spent those silent years, the people were

amazed at His wisdom and power. They could not believe it,

and said, "Is not this the carpenter whose whole family is still

with us?" In other words, they were saying, here is one of us,

a common laborer in the community who has come back.

How is it He has all this education and leadership ability

when we know He has only been a carpenter? We have here

then a clear witness to the fact that Jesus labored with His

hands.

It is not surprising since all Jewish boys were taught a

trade by their fathers, and though Joseph was not the literal

father of Jesus, he was His father in every other way. He

taught Jesus all he knew. Tradition says that Joseph died at

the age of 111 when Jesus was 18 years old. This meant that

Jesus as the oldest boy in the family would have to work to

support Mary in raising the other children. Some feel the

other children were by a previous marriage of Joseph. Some

feel they were only cousins. Others simply accept those

children as ones that Mary bore to Joseph after Jesus was

born. This last view is the simplest, and can hardly be a bad

conclusion, for they are called the brothers and sisters of

Christ. If the Biblical writers feared anyone would draw the

conclusion that Mary had other children they certainly did

not do anything to prevent such a conclusion.

It really doesn't matter, however, for the fact is, Jesus had

a family to care for. For all practical purposes Jesus knew

what it was to be a father. With Joseph dead He had to be

the bread winner. He could not go off preaching until He

had fulfilled His responsibility as the oldest son to His family.

When the Bible makes it clear that he who does not provide

for his own is worse than an infidel, we certainly do not

expect the Son of God in human flesh to go off on a spiritual

mission and leave his family to starve. Before He could begin

the job of building the temple not made with hands, He had a

job to do with His hands, and that is what Jesus did during

those years of silence.

They are silent, for they were years of just commonplace

normal living. Most of His life was like that of the average

person, and not filled with crowds, miracles, and perpetual

excitement. Jesus did nothing unusual in those years, for

here are His home town people saying what has happened?

This is our community carpenter. How is it He is so wise and

powerful all of the sudden? He had not done anything before

this to draw their attention to His uniqueness. That is why

they are silent years, for there was nothing unusual to record.

Jesus lived the common life of a laboring man. He dignified

labor as no one else ever could. The poet wrote,

If Jesus was a carpenter,

On plane and bradowl leaning,

Then workman's tools of every kind

Glitter with heavenly meaning.

Jesus would seek the best way to do a job. He would use

tools to make His work more effective. Man's love for tools

and gadgets to build and create with are a legitimate aspect

of life, for even the Son of God used tools as a carpenter.

This aspect of His life colored His ministry of teaching. Jesus

spoke often of wise builders. Jesus built houses before He

built His church, and He used the principles of one for the

other. He said that wise builders choose a good foundation

first. He builds on the rock and not on the sand.

Jesus practiced this in building the church. He laid a solid

foundation, and then selected men like Peter, the rock, to

build on, with himself as the chief cornerstone. Jesus also

talked of men who foolishly began to build before counting

the cost. They had to stop before they finished and let the

project go to ruin. Jesus was a master builder. He made

sure of adequate supply to build His church. He paid the

price for all sin, that any person of any age in history might

become a living stone in His church. None will be left out

due to lack of funds, for Jesus paid it all. Every man is a

potential stone in the church being built by the Carpenter of

Nazareth. As a carpenter Jesus made many doors, but the

door He made of Himself is the most marvelous. All of those

years He made doors out of wood, and His last big project

was also made out of wood, the wood of the cross. Never did

any carpenter do with wood what Jesus did upon the cross.

In this project His hands played a major role. They were

not shaping the wood, for they were nailed to the wood.

Those heavenly hands that on the tree

Were nail'd, and torn, and bled for me.

Here was His greatest labor of love. He used those hands to

work for years to provide for His family, but on the cross in

unmeasurable love He sacrificed His hands, and His whole

self to provide atonement for the sin of all men. Here He laid

the foundation that nothing can destroy. His hands became

a primary symbol of this great act of love because they bore

the imprint of the nails. It was the nail pierced hands that

Jesus showed to doubting Thomas to convince him He was

the crucified but risen Christ. He who pounded many a nail

had nail scarred hands, not because He was a carpenter, but

because He was a Savior.

Many feel that the two men on the road to Emmaus

recognized Jesus at last because when He broke break they

saw His nail pierced hands. The hands of the crucified but

risen carpenter are the hands of security. We can have no

security in our riches, or in the fact that we have a great and

powerful country. These are but tools in the hands of men.

Disease and death can easily snatch us from the hands of

men, but Jesus said of His own, "Nothing shall pluck them

out of my hands."

The hands of Christ seem very frail,

For they were broken by a nail,

But only they reach heaven at last

Whom these frail, broken hands hold fast.

These hands that flung the worlds in space, and fashioned

nature's beauty in every place, and formed the whole of the

human race, also fulfilled the plan of grace. It was the hands

of Christ that reached out to save Peter from sinking into the

sea. Only His hands can lift us and keep us from sinking.

The hands of Christ symbolize, not only security, but service.

Jesus used His hands for the service of others, both in the

carpenter shop, and in His ministry. Notice how often Jesus

takes a sick person by the hand and lifts them up well. How

often Jesus lays His hands on the sick, and with a touch

restores them to health. His hands were healing hands.

Jesus as the head of the church is now in heaven, but His

hands are still on earth, for the church is His body. This

means that we as believers are to continue to be the hands of

Christ in a world that needs hands of service, and hands with

a healing touch.

It has been proven that everyone of us has the power of

healing in our hands, but we so seldom use it because we are

so seldom conscious that our hands are to be tools in the

hands of Christ. Many children have problems because they

lack the security that comes with the touch of their father's

hands. We need to put our hands on our children's heads,

and put our arms around them, and by touch communicate

our love. We cannot do it with words alone. Hands play a

major role in communicating love. Reuben K. Youngdahl

wrote, "In East Africa a group of natives, having made a

long journey seeking medical care, walked right past a

government hospital to reach a mission hospital. When

asked why they had walked the extra distance, when the

government hospital had exactly the same medicine, they

replied, "The medicine may be the same, but the hands are

different."

The hands of Christians should express the touch of

Christ. Jesus specialized in the personal touch, and those

who would be instruments in His hands will pray as a poet

has written,

Give strength to lift the wounded up,

And warm our hearts so much

That through our hands each one may feel

The healing of Thy touch.

When Phillips Brooks died his people hired a sculptor to

fashion a memorial. He took his hammer and began to work,

but three times he had to start over. He just couldn't get it to

come out right. Finally, it came to him what to do. He first

fashioned a figure of Jesus, and then made the figure of

Brooks with the hand of Jesus on his shoulder. Those who

knew Brooks were very satisfied, for they said, "That's how it

was. Jesus was always first with Phillips Brooks, and His

hand, it seemed, was always on his shoulder."

During the closing months of World War II a group of

American soldiers helped rebuild a partially bombed

Cathedral in Southern Europe. One GI was assigned the

task of repairing a marble statue of Christ. It had been

knocked over, and the hands were broken off. He was not

able to find the broken pieces in the rubble. He concluded

that the statue would have to be discarded, but then he got

an idea. He made a plague and hung it on the statue which

said, "I have no hands but yours." Jesus wants to lay His

hands on us that we might be moved to use our hands to do

His will in the world.

Yours are the hands of God.

How did you use them today?

Did they crush or caress?

Did they ruin or bless?

How did you use them today?

Yours are the hands of God.

The hands that He lent you to use.

Did they reach out in greed,

Or to meet someone's need?

Did you use them to heal or abuse?

Yours are the hands of God.

Use them well as you travel life's way.

Turn with love to each task,

For one day God will ask:

What did you do with My hands today?

Levent Surleau

9. THE MIND OF THE MASTER Based on Luke 2:40-52

A teacher began his Sunday School class by starting a

discussion. He said he was reading in the Bible about a living

dog and a dead lion, and he asked the class which they would

rather be? There was a pause, and then Jack spoke up and

said, "I'd rather be the living dog. It's better to be alive than

dead any day." Alec spoke up and said, "Oh, I don't know

about that. A dead lion has been a living lion while a living

dog will be a dead dog someday. I think I'd rather be the

dead lion." A third child had just sat in silence, but then he

responded, "Well, I'd like to be a little of both. I'd like to be

a lion like the one, and alive like the other." I am sure the

teacher was surprised at this clever solution. Children can

often surprise us with their ability to answer questions in

ways that we would not think of.

This was the case with Jesus when He was a child. One of

the very first impressions we get of Jesus is that He was a

brilliant boy. He had a keen mind, and Luke makes a point

of this fact. In 2:40 he writes, "The child grew and became

strong, filled with wisdom, and the favor of God was upon

Him." Luke goes on to show just how sharp His mental

growth was by telling us of His experience in the temple with

the scholars. In verses 46-47 he says that Jesus was listening

and asking questions, and all who heard Him were amazed at

His understanding and answers. Jesus was only 12 years old,

but He was already a diligent student, and was able to carry

on intelligent conversations with mature theologians.

We are not to read into this that Jesus was putting the

teachers of the temple to shame by His superior wisdom.

The language indicates that He was a student. He was

learning from them, but was a very keen student with

provocative questions and perceptive answers. Luke closes

the chapter with another reference to the growth of Jesus in

the four basic areas of manhood: The physical, the

intellectual, the spiritual, and the social. We want to focus on

His intellect.

The very fact of the growth of Christ in knowledge and

wisdom is a clear demonstration of the reality of His full

humanity. As a child He was not only not the omniscient

God that He was in pre-incarnate state, but He was not even

a mature man. Jesus was a true child, and was immature

and ignorant of a great deal about life. He had to learn and

mature by means of study, observation, and by asking

questions and listening to others. This is one obvious reason

why we do not have any record of the words and acts of Jesus

as a boy and a young man. In that state when He had not yet

grown to full maturity of wisdom and perfection of mind, His

words were not of eternal value. His wisdom at that point

was not worthy of being recorded for all generations, for it

would not yet be greater than the wisdom of the scholars of

His day.

Jesus waited until His preparation was complete to begin

His ministry of public teaching. His years of silence up to

that point were years of profound preparation in thought.

Jesus was not just killing time. He had a mother and family

to provide for, but He was also developing His mind through

the study of Scripture. Jesus only had three and a half years

of ministry, but He changed the world because He developed

quality of thinking. His mind was in perfect accord with the

mind of God before He acted. We can never know the IQ of

Jesus, but we can assume that as a strong healthy child with

the pure human heritage of Mary, and the perfect divine

heritage of the Holy Spirit, that He was a genius.

Apocryphal stories have Him teaching astronomy and other

sciences of the day, and there is no reason to doubt that Jesus

could have done so. It is only doubtful that He did because

this was not His ministry. He did reveal, however, that He

was a well educated man, even though He did not attend any

formal school of higher education.

In John 7:15 we see the response of the people to the

teaching of Jesus in the temple. "The Jews marveled at it,

saying, how is it that this man has learning, when He has

never studied?" G. Campbell Morgan comments: "The

emphasis of their question lay, not upon the spiritual

teaching of Jesus, but upon the illustrations He used, and

upon the evident acquaintance with what was then spoken of

as learning. It was not that they were overwhelmed by t a

sense of His spiritual insight, for, then as now, men knew that

spiritual insight often belonged to those who had no learning.

They were impressed by the beauty of His expression, the

wealth of His illustration, and His evident familiarity with

those things, to become acquainted with which, men gave

themselves up to long courses of study. The mind of Christ

was refined, cultured, and beautiful..."

Jesus was self educated, and was an intellectual of His

day. He knew His nations past history well through His

study of the Old Testament. He used it often in His teaching,

and for sake of argument He could refer back to the stories of

Naaman, and the widow of Zarephath. He was alert to the

contemporary events, and He used them for illustrations, as

in the case of the Galileans whose blood Pilate mixed with

their sacrifices, and the 18 on whom the tower of Siloam fell.

He was exceptionally perceptive in the use of nature and the

common events of life for illustrating spiritual truth.

Jesus was a student of all times, and He was aware of

what was, what is, and what was to be. The point we are

emphasizing, however, is that He was this as a man and not

as God. He emptied Himself of His omniscience when He

became a man, and clearly took upon Himself the limitations

of finite intelligence. When He was a child in Nazareth He,

like Paul in Tarsus, spoke like a child, thought like a child,

and acted like a child, but as He matured He put away

childish things. Jesus had to develop His capacity just as all

men do. Percy Ainsworth said, "Nazareth was silent

concerning the great One who had stooped to share its lowly

life, because it did not know that He was great, or that He

had stooped." He was only an ordinary carpenter to them

until He began to express His wisdom and power in teaching

and miracles.

Jesus had wisdom superior to any man who ever lived.

Solomon had this distinction before, but Jesus said a greater

than Solomon is here, and He was referring to Himself. His

wisdom and knowledge was supernatural in that it was often

beyond what even a perfect could know, but it was

nevertheless human knowledge in the sense that it was

possible only because of His perfect relationship to God.

What I am saying is one of the paradoxes of Christ's

humanity. Both His growth and wisdom and His perfection

of wisdom demonstrate the full reality of His humanity. His

growth and limitation show Him to be like us, but His

perfection shows Him to beyond us, but as an ideal to which

we can strive, because He reached that point by developing

to its full capacity the relationship of one's humanity to God.

To put it simply, everything that Jesus did and knew which

was supernatural, He did as a man, and thus revealed the

possibilities of manhood in perfect relationship to God.

S. D. Gordon in Quiet Talks About Jesus states his view of

this same idea. He says of Jesus, "He was as truly human as

though only human....In His ability to read men's thoughts

and know their lives without finding out by ordinary means,

His knowledge ahead of coming events, His knowledge of and

control over nature, He clearly was more than the human we

know. Yet until we know more than we seem to now of the

proper powers of an unfallen man matured and growing in

the use and control of those powers we cannot draw here any

line between human and divine. But the whole presumption

is in favor of believing that in all of this Jesus was simply

exercising the proper human power which with Him were not

hurt by sin but ever increasing in use." This is all the more

likely when we consider that men who were imperfect and

sinners were endowed by God with supernatural knowledge

and power.

Men before and after Jesus did miracles, and foresaw the

future. Jesus said men after Him would do even greater

things than He did. Jesus demonstrated the great potential

of manhood in the realm of the mind if it is centered on God

and His will. The secret of the wisdom and power of Jesus

was in His total dependence upon God His Father. Listen to

His own words in John 5:19-20. "Truly, truly, I say to you,

the Son can do nothing of His own accord, but only what He

sees the Father doing, for what ever He does, that the Son

does likewise. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him

all that He Himself is doing, and greater works than these

will He show Him, that you may marvel."

The perfect submission of His manhood to God allowed

His humanity to be an instrument of supernatural knowledge

and power. Knowledge in a human mind becomes a force for

God in the world when the mind is open to God's leading to

fulfill His purpose. If intellectuals are often fools, and

promoters of evil, it is not due to their being intellectuals, but

due to the lack of their vision of God and yieldedness to His

will.

Jesus would have us learn all we can to the glory of God.

All knowledge can be so used. Jesus was a keen user of logic,

and He used it constantly in His teaching to persuade, and in

His arguments with His opponents. Jesus would have us

develop our minds as instruments for God's purpose, even as

He did. He said to His disciples that they should be wise as

serpents and harmless as doves. He urged men to come to

Him and learn of Him. He was the fulfillment of the ideal

man of the Old Testament. He was a man of knowledge and

wisdom. John says He was full of grace and truth. Paul says

that in Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and

knowledge. The mind of Christ has had a great impact on

this world, greater than any other mind. His church has

done more to influence the intellectual development of

mankind than any other institution.

Bill Harvey wrote,

He never wrote a book with pen and ink,

But with His life, He caused more men to think

Then any other man. He never played

Upon an instrument, and yet He made

More hearts to sing and made more fingers glide

Along the string and ivory and guide

More melodies of praise to Him than all

The symphonies this world could e'er recall.

Neither architect nor artist He

Was ever called in rugged Galilee,

And yet, a steeple seldom points above

But what a builder has been thinking of

The Carpenter, the Craftsman of Ages.

He built and He is building yet, and sages

Who are wise still recognized this King

And say He's Lord of all; of everything.

He is Lord of our minds, and He commands us to love

God with all of our mind. Paul says that we are to let the

mind of Christ be in us. To learn of and submit to the mind

of the Master is to begin a journey toward the highest

possible intellectual development of your humanity.