Sermon: ‘Engraved on Jesus’ Hands (Isaiah 49:13-26)

By Rev. Dr. Ed Hird, All Saints Community Church, Crescent Beach

How many of you have ever visited England? We have been there four times.  While initially visiting England, we noticed that their underground subways have a rather strange sign: Mind the Gap. They are warning people not to fall into the gap between the train and the platform. All of us have spiritual and emotional gaps in our lives.

Bishop Peter, in a recent sermon, talked about the eighteen inches between our head and our heart being the greatest gap in the universe. There is often a gap between what we cognitively believe and what we experience in our hearts. Bishop Peter works hard to help us be more self-aware of these gaps. Dr JI Packer said: ”True religion claims the affections as well as the head: It is heart-work.”

Steve Cuss said that some of us are honest about the gaps; some pretend that we have no gaps. But only a very few don’t experience a gap at all. In Steve Cuss’s new book Expectation Gaps, he helps us more intentionally mind the gaps in our spiritual lives.

Three common Expectation Gaps identified by Steve Cuss

1. I believe that God loves me but I don’t always feel it.
2. I believe that God is with me but I don’t always see it.
3. I believe that I would be further ahead in my Christian life by now.

In the poem Aurora Leigh, Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote: “Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God: But only he who sees, takes off his shoes, The rest sits round it, and pluck blackberries.” Seeing God is often about knowing how and where to look. There are so many signs of God’s beauty all around us that we easily miss in our small, self-absorbed lives. I will never forget when, shortly after my conversion in Grade 12, I noticed the light of God shining through our backyard tree. For five years, I never noticed that burning bush, that sacred tree, but my eyes had opened.

When has God felt closest to you? Would anyone like to share?

When have you seen God at work in your life? Would anyone like to share?

When have you seen God at work in creation? Would anyone like to share?

Have any of us ever felt that we should be further ahead in our Christian life by now?

Steve Cuss commented that sometimes he forgets that God is with him and instead he depends completely on himself. In those moments, he feels like everything is on his shoulders. Can anyone else relate? Do I hear an Amen? With provincial and federal elections coming up, I thank God that the government is on Jesus’ shoulders.

Isaiah 49:13 tells us: ”Shout for joy, you heavens; rejoice, you earth; burst into song, you mountains! For the Lord comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones.”

How many of you have ever met a Methodist? They are almost an extinct species in Canada. All of my paternal ancestors were Methodists until 1925, when my father converted to the newly formed United Church at the age of one years old. Does any one else have any ancestors who were either Methodists or part of the United Church? Methodists back in those days were often known as Shouting Methodists. My complicated blacksmith great grandfather Tom, who bootlegged to the RCMP, was a Methodist lay preacher. He was remembered by relatives as preaching the hot gospel. Methodists loved to shout for joy and burst into song. Singing, thanks to Charles Wesley, was foundational in the Methodist experience.

After this overflowing of shouting and singing in vs. 13, vs. 14 starts with a but.  “But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.””

Have you ever been tempted to believe that God has forsaken and forgotten you? It is a deeply painful thing when we believe that we are all alone and forgotten.  CH Spurgeon said that God keeps his promise a thousand times, and yet the next trial makes us doubt Him.

What has helped you fight back against this lie from the devil that God has forgotten you? Does anyone want to share?

Sometimes when struggling with acute anxiety, depression or a dark night of the soul, it can feel very difficult to pray or read the Bible. This can leave good Christians with a lot of false guilt and shame. I have learned to let people in psychiatric facilities that it is normal and okay to find it difficult to pray or read the Bible. That doesn’t mean that they are bad Christians.

It is so easy to get stuck in our family’s default ways of coping. Sometimes we are our own worst enemy. It is too easy in our Christian life to be stuck on the treadmill of false expectations, of would-ofs, should-ofs, could-ofs, if-only. Steve Cuss insightfully said: “Once I get off the treadmill, I can remember the Lord.” What if we got off the expectation gap treadmill and stopped beating ourselves up? What if we chose to be as kind to ourselves as we are to others? Part of healthy self awareness is to be aware that we are loved even in our brokenness. Do you show the love of neighbour to yourself, loving your neighbour as you love yourself? It really doesn’t work to try to love your neighbour as you hate yourself.

Many kind Christians secretly curse themselves as stupid, ugly, and useless. A lot of this comes from the broken tapes of our childhood and teenage wounds. How overreaching is your inner critic? If someone compliments you, can you receive it, or do you just reject it? One of Satan’s names in Revelation 12:10 is accuser of the brothers and sisters. He does it day and night. What if we stopped agreeing with the devil’s accusation? What if we started overcoming him by the blood of the lamb, the word of our testimony, and because we loved our life not unto death.

In Isaiah 49:15, God says: ““Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!”

Has anyone every forgotten their umbrella? Has anyone forgotten their wallet or purse?  How about your keys? Has anyone forgotten where they parked the car? Has anyone ever forgotten their children? 😉 How long did it take you to find them? I am reminded of how anxious Mother Mary and Joseph were when they lost Jesus at age 12 in Jerusalem. God however never forgets any one. Isaiah 43:25, Jeremiah 31:34, and Hebrews 8:13 teaches that God forgets your sins through the cross and can’t even remember them. He will never, however, forget your name. You are not just a SIN number to God. He called you by name while you were still in your mother’s womb. Psalm 139:14 tells us that each of us are fearfully and wonderfully made. As the poster says, God doesn’t make any junk.

What did Jesus quote from Psalm 22 while hanging on the cross? My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me? Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani! Jesus on the cross chose to be god-forsaken so that we might never be forsaken again. God will never forget you. Could your mother ever forget you? In one of our Winston Churchill High School 40th anniversary booklets, several men flippantly answered the question ‘Do you have any children’ by writing ‘None that I know of’. I have never heard a women say that. Mothers still remember all their children, including those who were miscarried, or aborted. Unlike doctors, surgical nurses in secular hospitals are forced to do abortions.

Some of my nurse friends felt no grief until they met Jesus. Their consciences came alive. One who wanted but couldn’t have children, switched to a catholic hospital to avoid doing more abortions. It is so wonderful that Jesus can bring healing and forgiveness to those who regret their abortions. While tragic, abortion is not the unforgivable sin. Our prayer teams can really help. I’ve even prayed once with a man who regretted his involvement in an abortion. That doesn’t happen often.

So can a woman forget her baby? It is possible but highly unusual if that happen. Moms, how many of you have forgotten about your children? How often do you think about them? Do you ever lose sleep over them?  What helps you surrender them to Jesus?  Even if they have rejected and cut you off for a season, you can’t forget them. Neither will God forget you. Psalm 27:10 powerfully reminds people that though our father and mother forsake us, the Lord will receive us. That is very good news.

His covenant with you cannot be broken. By night and by day, Jesus is always thinking of you. His eye is always upon you. God never ceases to remember you. He is not too busy for you. He does all things well. You are his beloved, the darling of His heart.

Jesus in Isaiah 49:16 says: See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.” The New American Standard Version calls the verb ‘inscribed’. Have any one here ever cut yourself with a knife? Did you have to go to hospital? My grandfather master mechanic/blacksmith chopped off half of two fingers. You are not just tattooed on Jesus’ hands. You are carved there. That is why the resurrected Jesus’ wounds were never removed. You are included in his wounds, in the broken body of the Messiah.

As a young child in Sunday School, I loved the song ‘he’s got the whole world in his hands.’ I never realized as a child however that his hands still have holes in them. Even his mighty resurrection didn’t remove his wounds. Acts 11:21 said says that the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord. God’s wounded hands are mighty to save. When the Bible says that Jesus sits on the right hand of the Father, this is the power of God in action to bring healing, salvation and deliverance. You may remember the prayer of Jabez in 1 Chronicles 4:10  ‘Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your Hand would be with me, and that you would keep me from the evil, that I may not cause pain!’ How many wants God’s wounded hand to be with you?

John 10:29 gives us wonderfully good news that no one can pluck you from his scarred hands. With his wounded hands, he fights for you. No one can really love without being wounded. Have you noticed? When young men went to war, mothers would write the names of their sons on their hands, so they would always be thinking about you. In WWW1, mothers would keep a photo of their son always with them.

CH Spurgeon called vs 16 ‘this inestimably precious text’ ‘a precious drop of honey’.  He said ‘People speak about the seven wonders of the world. Being carved on the palm of his hands is a wonder in the seventh heavens.’ Revelation 13:8 mysteriously tells us that Jesus the Lamb of God was slain from the foundation of the world.

The very nature of love is sacrificial giving. Loving mothers are radically sacrificial. I have seen that in my mother and also in my dear wife Janice. 1 Corinthians 5:7 tells us that Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed for us. All the sacrifices in the Bible point to the ultimate sacrificial love of Jesus nailed to the cross. Dr John Stott memorably said that if it were not for the cross of Christ embracing our suffering, he would have become an atheist. Only the wounded hands of Jesus make sense of senseless suffering.

I will never forget the altar call in Uganda when dozens of couples came forward to get married. Getting married is not easy in Uganda as you have to pay for the bride’s dowry with a number of cows. One man with his partner and baby told me that while he wanted to get married, he didn’t know if he was ready for that much responsibility. He seemed pretty involved to me. 😉 Many men think that marriage will kill them. It actually statistically gives them a longer and more satisfying life. Many men also fear having children, that they can’t afford it. I did. Marriage and parenting are all about sacrificial love. So is grandparenting. Do I hear an amen? How many of you as grandparents have wounded hands with your grandchildren’s names carved on them?

In vs 17, God observes: “Your children hasten back, and those who laid you waste depart from you.”

One of the greatest moments in one’s life is family reconciliation particularly with one’s adult children. Another great moment is when toxic people depart from your world, so that you can feel safe again. Think of the yearning of many Israelis to have their hostage children freed from the Hamas tunnels after seven months of their being in captivity. Jesus has carved the names of those hostage children on his hands.

In vs 18, we are encouraged: “Lift up your eyes and look around; all your children gather and come to you. As surely as I live,” declares the Lord, “you will wear them all as ornaments; you will put them on, like a bride.”

As mentioned last Sunday, God wants all of our children, physically and spiritually, to come back home and be restored to the Holy Trinity. God is family. There is nothing sweeter than home sweet home, both spiritually and physically. God sees all of us, both married and single, as precious wedding ornaments. How many of us were raised with Susan Warner’s Sunday School hymn?:

Jesus bids me shine like a pure, clear light; like a little candle, shining in the light; in this world of darkness, so let us shine; you in your small corner and I in mine.”

Through Jesus’ wounded hands, light shines through into our small corners. Susan Warner asked her sister Anna to write the classic children’s hymn Jesus loves me. Their parents had lost most of their wealth in the 1847 financial crash when 40% of the New York banks collapsed. The two sisters never married and so had to survive by writing music. Their songs were so popular in their Bible studies with the West Point military cadets that the sisters were honoured after their deaths by being buried in the West Point Cemetery.

Isaiah 49:19-21 speaks of God replacing the bereavement and barrenness in our lives with his abundance:

““Though you were ruined and made desolate and your land laid waste, now you will be too small for your people, and those who devoured you will be far away. The children born during your bereavement will yet say in your hearing, ‘This place is too small for us; give us more space to live in.’ Then you will say in your heart, ‘Who bore me these? I was bereaved and barren; I was exiled and rejected. Who brought these up? I was left all alone, but these—where have they come from?’ ””

Some anticipate that tens of millions will return to the land of Israel in coming days.  It may feel like the place is too small.  You can imagine how excited that Israelis are when new babies are born after the destruction of October 7th.

In a culture of death, of abortion, drugs and MAID, what a blessing it is when people choose life, family and home. All Saints, as mentioned by Janice Inch last week, is a place of safety, welcome and homecoming. All of us are welcomed home by the wounded hands of Jesus.

God in Isaiah 49:22-23 speaks of bringing his people home, saying: “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: “See, I will beckon to the nations, I will lift up my banner to the peoples; they will bring your sons in their arms and carry your daughters on their hips. Kings will be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers. They will bow down before you with their faces to the ground; they will lick the dust at your feet. Then you will know that I am the Lord; those who hope in me will not be disappointed.””

God will not disappoint his chosen people the Jewish people as he is calling them to do Aliyah and return home to their homeland of Israel. None of us who turn to Yeshua/Jesus the Jewish messiah will be disappointed. He is the hope for both Israel and the nations as they are grafted into the olive tree. He has both Israel and the nations in his wounded hands.

Isaiah 49:24-26 says that God will contend with those who contend with you. God fights for Israel and for us as we return home:

“Can plunder be taken from warriors, or captives be rescued from the fierce? But this is what the Lord says: “Yes, captives will be taken from warriors, and plunder retrieved from the fierce; I will contend with those who contend with you, and your children I will save. I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh; they will be drunk on their own blood, as with wine. Then all mankind will know that I, the Lord, am your Savior, your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.””

        As God protects and restores Israel, this is a great witness to the nations that they too need to return to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, revealed in his son Jesus/Yeshua our messiah. God has carved Israel on the palm of his hand. By faith in Jesus the Messiah, we gentiles are also carved on the palm of his hand. He will never leave us. He will never forsake. He will never abandon us. 

Let us pray. Dear Jesus, thank you for what you did on the cross for us. Thank you for forgiveness. Thank you for healing. Thank you for including us. We are not forgotten. We are not abandoned, in your name. Amen.