The Monster’s Hands
The following is a reprise of a devotion from two years ago. Since this is now being published on the Hope website and there is a different audience eager for content, long time subscribers may remember this, or not… It’s that season and I re-watched the 1931 movie Frankenstein, you should too!
Boris Karloff played The Monster: Frankenstein’s Monster. One of the greatest performances of all time. Karloff was a trained actor; trained in a different time, with different methods. One of those methods was expression by the use of the hands. Karloff’s portrayal of the Monster is a master class in performing with the hands, it is totally magical. As a magician myself, I am fascinated by use of the hands. If you get a chance, watch the Monster’s hands. Watch a magician’s hands.
I have watched hands: actors, magicians, musicians, athletes… there is a natural movement as people use their hands. In my study of hands — I will try to put this delicately — there is an unnaturalness of the hands of someone in their final repose. Death has a way of doing that. “The last enemy to be destroyed is death,” St Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 11:26.
I try to imagine Jesus’ hands. Jesus stretching out his hand to heal a leper. Touching Peter’s mother-in-law. Taking the little girls hand in his and raising her from the dead. Jesus spreading his hands towards his disciples, “Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” The hands that reached out to grab Peter on the water. So many more… Jesus feeding us at the Last Supper. The nail scared hands that has defeated death. I can say with Job: I know my Redeemer lives and in my flesh I will see Jesus’s hands. The Master’s Hands.
Still More Monsters???
Steve Skiver
Upon reflection, two years after the original publication, our hands have become more prominent in our daily lives: more hand washing, hand sanitizing, less personal contact. We are more aware of our hands. “Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded people.” (James 4:8b EHV)
When Pilate saw that he was accomplishing nothing and that instead it was turning into a riot, he took water, washed his hands in front of the crowd, and said, “I am innocent of this righteous man’s blood. It is your responsibility.”
From <https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2027&version=EHV>
However, it is not about our hands, it’s about Jesus’:
He took the little children in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.
From <https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%2010&version=EHV>
When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue. Many who heard him were amazed. They asked, “Where did this man learn these things? What is this wisdom that has been given to this man? How is it that miracles such as these are performed by his hands?
From <https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%206&version=EHV>
And just to make the Frankenstein Monster analogy full circle:
The body is not one member, but many. If the foot says, “Because I am not a hand, I am not part of the body,” it does not on that account cease to be part of the body. If the ear says, “Because I am not an eye, I am not part of the body,” it does not on that account cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But now God has arranged the members in the body, each and every one of them, as he desired.
From <https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%2012&version=EHV>
Look! It’s moving. It’s alive. It’s alive… It’s alive, it’s moving, it’s alive, it’s alive, it’s alive, it’s alive, IT’S ALIVE!
Steve Skiver