Saturday, December 27, 2025
Feast of Saint John, Apostle and Evangelist
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Hands on
Beloved:
What was from the beginning,
what we have heard,
what we have seen with our eyes,
what we looked upon
and touched with our hands
concerns the Word of life.
And now for something completely different. Our minds aren’t the best tool we have to figure out eternal life, to figure out the God thing, to figure out our response to Jesus. John is using his ears, his eyes and his hands. Touch me and see. Look on these things and see. Hear the word and see. I am alive, Jesus says. Come and see.
Sister Mary Ligouri taught piano, and each week Mom took each of us (me, Mary Kay and John) to St. Mary’s Convent in Lincoln for lessons. For several solid grade school years she was our teacher, tall, young, black gowned with glasses, great sense of humor. She was wonderful, patient with me, with my hands and with my heart. But then I became older and left the childish things and lost my piano touch. Mother Mary, come to me. I want that touch back again.
Jesus, touch my hands and let me see.
My hands want to be used. I love to touch someone when I pray for them. My hands get warm. Occasionally I get to help one of our grandkids with a splinter. It feels right to me to hold my hands still and move them in just the right way. When words fly out of the keyboard onto a computer screen, my hands rejoice!
We are writing this so that our joy may be complete.
My fingers can scramble around a guitar and somewhat lovely sounds come out. But what I really look forward to are the sounds of the keys, the black and white keys of the piano man’s song in the morning. “This is the day that the Lord has made!” My hands want to learn that song again.
I remember the 4-H Pledge which I recited at the opening of each monthly meeting. “I pledge my head to clearer thinking, my heart to greater loyalty, my hands to larger service, and my health to better living, for my club, my community, my country and my world.”
I think better and see better when it starts in my hands. At the end of today’s text John said, “I write this so that my joy may be made complete.” He wanted his listeners to rejoice like him. And … he was glad to be using his hands. It felt good.
The life was made visible;
we have seen it and testify to it
and proclaim to you the eternal life
that was with the Father and was made visible to us.
Lord, awaken all our senses. Such a gift you’ve given us, not just for us to use but also to enjoy! Thank you for my eyes and my ears and my hands. We know you better when we touch you, whether it’s the skin of a peach or the skin of a baby like Finn or the wrinkled skin of a wise old man. You inhabit. You are there on the surface of things, and then as we go deeper you are there. Beauty proclaims your presence, and everything is beautiful.
1 John 1:1-4, Psalm 97, John 20)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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