While growing up in New Mexico, my brother and I skied regularly with my dad. Each winter we’d drive a couple of hours to Sierra Blanca and ride the gondola nearly to the top of the 12,000 foot mountain. Even on clear and sunny days, temperatures at that elevation were bone-chilling. After the initial ascent in the gondola, most of our other uphill transportation during the day consisted of a series of chairlifts. Sometimes we’d be on a chairlift in freezing temperatures and steady wind for fifteen minutes. We often used that time to replenish ourselves with some peanut butter and crackers or energy bars which we kept in a small backpack.
In order to unzip the backpack, pull out the food, and tear away the packaging, one of us had to take our gloves off. They were so stuffed with insulation that no one could perform a task requiring fine motor skills while wearing them. Usually, my dad would say, “Let me hold your gloves while you get the food.” I would place my gloves in his outstretched hands making sure he had a firm grip on them before I released them. If he dropped them, my skiing day was done. Without the gloves, my fingers would get frostbite. I’d have to spend the rest of the day alone in the lodge at the base of the ski area while my dad and my brother enjoyed the slopes. But in all those years, my dad never dropped my gloves. We performed this chairlift ritual hundreds of times. But he never dropped my gloves. Each time, having unzipped the backpack, pulled out the food, and opened the packaging, I’d find my gloves firmly in his grasp. Relieved, I’d pull them back on and we’d eat together in silence, taking in the grandeur of the mountain before us.
What started as a seemingly insignificant ski-day custom has given way to a very significant daily necessity. Every 12 months I place my teeth in the hands of my dentist. Every two weeks I place my paycheck in the hands of my local bank teller. Each morning for years I placed my children in the hands of teachers at school. Life is filled with the necessity of placing what is precious into the palms of others.
You simply cannot live without regularly putting valued things into the hands of others. But what we place in those hands we often want immediately returned. We cannot personally accomplish every project requiring attention at the workplace. So we delegate to coworkers. But sometimes we pull those projects right back because we want to make sure they are completed correctly. We hire a neighborhood kid to watch the family dog while we’re on vacation. But we end up sick with worry, wondering if the kid will actually feed the dog and keep the back gate closed. We wind up thinking we should have just brought the dog with us. Life necessitates our handing things over. But we regularly want them handed back to us.
We all know this is a trust issue. Specifically, it’s a trust issue regarding competency and character. Can I trust the competency of the one whose hands now hold my treasures? Are those hands strong enough? Are they skilled enough? Can those hands do any better than mine? Competency was the primary matter in our minds when we turned our son Jacob over to doctors for his tonsillectomy. We’d never had a child undergo a significant medical procedure. What we needed to know without any doubt was the competency of the hands that wheeled him away and cut into his throat. It was only when we were convinced that these doctor’s skills were superior that we were able to let Jacob go with some amount of peace.
We worry about competency. We also wonder about character. Can I trust the character of the one whose hands now hold the things most precious to me? Maybe they have strong muscles and fine skills. But do they also have strong ethics and fine morals? With speculative investing, ponzi schemes, and corruption in some levels of the financial markets, I sometimes worry about all the hands my retirement investments pass through on their way (hopefully) to higher yields. Can I trust those hands?
Unfortunately, we have the same trust issues when we pray. They are the very issues Jesus addresses in one of his prayers from the cross:
“It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun’s light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!’ And having said this he breathed his last (Lk. 23:44-46 ESV).”
Jesus is exposed. Physically, of course, he is displayed on a cross wearing nothing but an undergarment, but also emotionally, spiritually, and psychologically Jesus is exposed. People curse him. People mock him. Almost everyone he once counted on has deserted him. And from all appearances, it would seem that even God has proven himself unworthy of Jesus’ trust. Despite this, Jesus prays a prayer of child-like faith. Though faith has every reason to be absent, in this petition it is present. Jesus prays a prayer of tremendous trust.
The trust is rooted in Jesus’ deep and intimate knowledge of the competency and character of God’s hands. First, the prayer focuses on competency: “into your hands I commit my spirit!” In the Bible the human hand is an expression of power and control. When Israel triumphed over an enemy, we are told that God gave Israel’s enemy “into their hands.” And when Israel lost to an enemy, we are told that Israel fell into the “hands” of that enemy (Judges 11:21; 13:5). This expression reveals how humanity leverages their strength and might and how humanity is given the ability to shape another’s destiny. The human hand is the symbol of power and control.
The same is true regarding God’s hands. When the Philistines capture the ark and then suffer discipline from God, the writer says that the “hand of God was very heavy there (1 Sam. 5:11 ESV).” When people are delivered or protected in the Bible, is it by the hand of God. God brought the Israelites out of Egypt with a “with great power and with a mighty hand” (Ex. 32:11). When Moses retells the exodus story, he speaks repeatedly of God’s “mighty hand” (Deut. 3:24; 4:34; 5:15; 7:19; 9:26; 11:12). Joshua looks back on the exodus and says that God rescued Israel so that “all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the LORD is mighty” (Josh. 4:24 ESV). In the Bible, the hands of God are synonymous with the greatness and might of God.
Jesus has witnessed God’s hands for an eternity past. He knows beyond any doubt that these hands are their most skilled and most powerful hands that exist. He knows these hands are greater than the hands which placed him on the cross. He believes these hands are superior to the nails which pierced his. Jesus trusts completely in the competency of God’s hands.
But Jesus not only points to the competence of God’s hands in his prayer. He points to the character of those hands. His prayer comes from Psalm 31. But Jesus adds a word to this ancient prayer. He adds the word “Father.” In the original, David prays, “Into your hands I commit my spirit” (Ps. 31:5 ESV). In Jesus’ version we hear this important addition, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” Jesus envisions not merely the grand hands of God or the controlling hands of the Creator. Jesus envisions the loving, caring, and adoring hands of Father. These are the hands that have applauded, hugged, and held Jesus. Jesus knows the character of these hands as only the Son can know the hands of the Father.
Scripture not only speaks of God’s hands as mighty and magnificent. It also speaks of God’s hands as caring and compassionate. The psalmist appeals to this character when he cries out: “Arise, O LORD; O God, lift up your hand; forget not the afflicted (Psalm 10:12 ESV).” This is not a prayer about God’s might. It’s a prayer about mercy. The psalmist sees God’s hands as the source of help and kindness for the afflicted.
Later, the psalmist praises God’s hands for a similar reason: “For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand (Psalm 95:7 ESV).” God’s hands are the hand of a shepherd. They are not the hands of a hunter. Both the hands of a hunter and the hands of a shepherd are strong and skilled. But when it comes to the sheep, the hunter’s hands lead to slaughter while the shepherd’s hands lead to safety. God’s hands are the hands of a shepherd: kind and compassionate, a safeguard.
Each year as Israelites traveled to Jerusalem for festivals, they celebrated God’s caring hands. In one of their Songs of Ascents they remembered, “Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maidservant to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our God, till he has mercy upon us (Psalm 123:2 ESV).” The hands of the master and the mistress were not merely competent—they were compassionate. The male servant looked to the master’s hand for sustenance and kindness, as the female servant looked to the mistress’ hand for mercy and compassion. The Israelites used these images to describe the way that they looked to God’s hands. The Israelites not only trusted in the ability of God’s hands. They trusted also in their integrity. God’s hands would always bring mercy to his people.
It’s not hard to imagine that Jesus has these images in mind when he prays his prayer. After all, his prayer is a quote from the Psalms. Jesus knows how the psalmists celebrate the kindness and mercy of the hands of God. Thus he does the same on the cross.
And because of this trust, rooted in his conviction about the competency and character of God’s hands, Jesus was able to place something priceless in those hands. Jesus prayed, ““Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” The word “spirit” refers to the innermost part of Jesus. Spirit here is the critical energy by which the body is animated. This is Jesus’ core. This is the most fragile and vulnerable piece of himself. This is the battery which fuels the rest of the machine. Jesus entrusts into God’s hands not just something important or someone important. Jesus entrusts his spirit—the most fundamental part of himself.
When we genuinely understand the competency and character of God’s hands, we are able to entrust those hands with what is most important. Not just the superficial. Not just the merely significant. But those matters around which our life revolves, those matters we live and die for, those matters which give meaning and purpose to our existence.
Henri Nowen writes of attending a circus performance in Germany. He particularly enjoyed the trapeze artists called the Flying Rodleighs. After the performance, Nowen asked the leader of the troop about their craft. Rodleigh said, “As a flyer, I must have complete trust in my catcher. The public might think I am the star, but the real star is my catcher…The secret is that the flyer does nothing and the catcher does everything. When I fly I have simply to stretch out my arms and hands and wait for him to catch me. The worst thing I can do is to try to catch the catcher. A flyer must fly and a catcher must catch and the flyer must trust, with outstretched arms, that the catcher will be there for him.”
Jesus has complete trust in his catcher. Through prayer Jesus stretches out his arms and flies. He knows the Father will catch him. There is no doubt in his mind.
Sometimes there is nothing we can do but trust that those hands still hold. We may not be able to change a thing about our situation. We may have no control over the source of our suffering. We may not be able to pause the pain. But one thing we can do: fall into the Father’s hands. We can entrust what is most valuable and most endangered into his hands.
Jesus’ prayer is a powerful one to utilize on those occasions when something precious seems endangered. And so much feels endangered during this Covid-19 crisis doesn’t it? So, consider your life this week. Is something threatened—a dream?—a plan?—a relationship?—a desire?—an important person? Every day this week picture that endangered person or possession in your mind and then pray: “Father, into your hands, I commit my ______________.”
[This post adapted from a chapter in my book Prayers from the Pit]
