The Healing Word

Pastor Jack Morris: As I was putting this together, I was thinking the only way I'm going to be able to cry out to you, Lord, is when I see your hands. Not only when I get to heaven, but right now, I've got to see something at this table. I've got to see something more than grape juice and a wafer.

I've got to see Jesus taking my place, my sin, my hurt, and my wounds. I've got to see it. When I see it, it is then, and then only, am I going to be able to say, "My Lord and my God."

Guest (Male): It seems inevitable that the longer we live life, the more pain we encounter. But pain does not have to conquer us if we turn to the one who himself encountered pain while on this earth.

Jesus knows your situation, and his nail-pierced hands are available to heal, redeem, and provide eternal life.

Pastor Jack Morris: God knows your pain. We've all had pain. Lots of pain. You can't live in this world without pain. Thank God, he knows what that pain is. He is the healer of every sickness, disease, broken heart, and psychological pain. God knows what's going on, and he's not oblivious to it or immune to it himself.

Think of the pain that's in the world: the hospitals, doctors, clinics, nursing homes, orphanages, and prisons. On and on it goes. I don't need to elaborate. Broken homes, broken lives, psychologists, social workers, and counselors. Just pain. You know pain. You've lived here a little while. You've experienced it.

I was thinking that it would be difficult, perhaps even impossible, to serve God if God didn't know pain. Let me say that again. I'm going to talk for just myself right now. It would be difficult for me to serve Jehovah God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ—almost impossible—if he were immune to pain, didn't know pain, didn't understand pain, and didn't hear people in pain praying. I don't think I could serve a God like that.

Our God knows pain. Jesus came. His name was Emmanuel, meaning "God with us." Living with us, cooperating with us, and sharing with us. God with us in our world, in our pain. Think about it.

I'm praying this morning that as you have already joined me in prayer, our focus would be on him. We would perhaps have a spiritual vision of him today as Jehovah God, the God who experienced pain—our pain—and who took our pain. Listen to me, friends. He took our pain and absorbed it into himself. This is an awesome God that we serve.

Emmanuel was on the cross. I'm going to try to use my imagination today. God's given each of us the gift of imagination. I'm going to try to use mine; you try to use yours. On the cross, there were nails driven in his hands and feet. Pain. On the cross, his back had been lacerated. Pain. On the cross, a spear had been driven into his side, piercing his heart. Pain.

His mouth was dry. His tongue was sticking to the roof of his mouth. He could hardly speak. He wore a brow of thorns with blood running down into his eyebrows, and when his eyebrows were soaked, it dripped down into his eyes. Pain. God Almighty, why would he put up with us and go through all of that when he could have called 10,000 angels? What a Savior. What a God on that cross. Lonely, twisted, tortured, because I'm a sinner and he wanted me in his kingdom. For that, I'm not sure just why, only that God is love.

He set aside his immunity to sickness, disease, and pain, and he entered our world. Now friends, here's what staggers me: he chose the scars. They weren't forced on him. He chose the scars. If this doesn't stagger you, he kept the scars as a reminder of the wounds.

Some of us have been wounded spiritually and emotionally. We're still carrying some of that pain. But he has the scars. They are there. You see, he knows what life is like in this world because he's been here. He has the scars to prove it. He knows.

I want to talk about the scars, particularly the scars in his hands this morning. There's a Christian surgeon, Dr. Paul Brand, a wonderful man of God. He gives his testimony as a surgeon of the hands. He specialized in the hands for over 40 years and performed 10,000 surgeries on the hands alone.

I want you to consider what he has to say about the human hand. Quote, "Nothing in all nature rivals the hand's combination of strength and agility, tolerance and sensitivity. We use our hands for the most wonderful activities: art, music, writing, healing, touching."

He went on to talk about a pianist and how he loves to go to piano concerts. He said, "I want to sit up close to the stage because I want to look at the pianist's fingers." He said it's a glorious flourish of ligaments, joints, tendons, nerves, and muscles. He just liked to see those hands moving across those keyboards.

The Savior's hands were pierced with the nails. We're going to come to the altar in just a short time and remember his hands pierced for us. Again, why he did that for me, I know he loved me. I know he still loves me. I know it was love that caused him to do it. But still, I keep wondering, "Why did you do that for me?"

You loved me so much that you would leave heaven above, a place where I've never been? I'm looking forward to going there because he came. He came all the way down here to Earth, again for me. I couldn't go up to you, but you could come to me. There is that great chasm in between, and you transformed and came down and became one like me to experience what I experience so that when I pray, you will know exactly what I'm praying about and you will feel it in your own body. You kept those scars as a reminder to yourself of what wounds we are experiencing.

Try to visualize with me here. I'm going to go through the hands of Jesus as best I know how to do it. He came into this world as a little baby. Why he chose to do it that way, I have some theories, but I don't know quite why. He came as an infant. Can you imagine this little crying baby, the God of the universe, coming into the world through a mother's womb?

Look at those little chubby hands of his, so soft. When you see a baby's hands, sometimes a baby will jerk his hands. He doesn't have much control over his hands at that time. He has little dimples on the knuckles. Little hands. One time, I was preaching here years ago and I said, "Did you ever go by a nursery in the hospital? Those little tiny babies are the ugliest little things."

Somebody caught me out here in the narthex for that. I try to be careful what I say, but I want to be honest. They are beautiful little creatures, aren't they? It is sort of paradoxical. But that little hand, little tiny hands. As a little baby, God couldn't put food in his mouth. He couldn't change his clothes. He came into the world with little tiny hands like ours.

He began to grow and he became an adolescent. Now his hands are larger. They're bigger. But now his hands are calloused. He's in the carpenter shop with his dad sawing, hammering, and planing. He works there for years with Joseph in that carpenter shop. Calloused hands.

He becomes a physician of body, soul, and spirit. The Great Physician. A physician's hands giving forth strength and help, touching the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf. Opening those eyes, opening those ears, and touching those who had leprosy that no one else would touch. Look at those hands.

Pierced hands. His hands were pierced. Do you remember this song? "They bound the hands of Jesus in the garden where he prayed. They led him to the streets in shame. They spat upon the Savior so pure and free from sin. They said, 'Crucify him. He's to blame.'"

My Lord, isn't it something? Everybody's wanting to blame somebody for the wrong that's in the world, from the government to the pastor to the church. Blame. Pointing the finger. Jesus yielded to the howling mob. He did not cry for mercy. On the cross of shame he took alone, and when he cried, "It's finished," he gave himself to die. Salvation's wondrous plan was done. He did it.

If you're going to point the finger at somebody, point it at him and say, "Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, goodwill toward men." He's the one that brought this salvation, and we're coming here to this table to remember. Resurrected hands. Three days after his crucifixion, the hands of our Savior arose from the dead. He came forth with scars.

You see, the Great Physician never healed his own scars. He still carries those scars. When he came forth from the grave with those scars on the first day of the week, the disciples were in the upper room for fear of the Jews with the doors bolted. Jesus appeared. One of them was missing. There's only the first time. If you miss the first one, there's never another time for the first time. Thomas was absent.

Jesus came in, spoke peace to them, and spoke salvation. This is the thing that Thomas missed that he was never able to recoup: Jesus breathed on them and said, "Receive ye the Holy Spirit." Dear Thomas, you missed the redemption of Jesus. You missed the breathing of the Holy Spirit upon you. You missed the infilling of the Holy Ghost. You missed it, Thomas. You'll see me again in eight days, but you'll never have an opportunity like that first time.

Friend, we need to take this salvation seriously. Thomas was absent for three days. Thomas said—and I'm paraphrasing now—"You just concocted something. You saw a ghost. You wanted to see him so badly you just made it all up." Wasn't that something to say to his own brothers and sisters in Christ that he had traveled with after all of those years?

He said, "Unless I see." That's why I've been talking this morning: use your imagination. See the hands that bled. Dr. Brand said after they put Jesus on the cross, the weight of his body hung there and dropped, and it tore the flesh further and he bled even more. When they said, "If you're the Christ, come down from the cross," thank God for all eternity he didn't listen to them.

I've listened to some people I should never have listened to. I tried to make them happy. Jesus wasn't trying to make that crowd happy. He was trying to make you and me happy. He came back seven days later. What a patient Savior. How patient he is when we make our mistakes.

He came back, and when he saw Thomas, he said, "Here's my hands. Look. You want to put your fingers in my hands, my scars? Here's my side." Thomas believed. That's when Thomas cried out, "My Lord and my God."

As I was putting this together, I was thinking the only way I'm going to be able to cry out to you, Lord, is when I see your hands. Not only when I get to heaven, but right now, I've got to see something at this table. I've got to see something more than grape juice and a wafer.

I've got to see Jesus taking my place, my sin, my hurt, and my wounds. I've got to see it. When I see it, it is then, and then only, am I going to be able to say, "My Lord and my God."

There are a lot of Christians around like Thomas. They're ready when they're ready. But Jesus has arisen. Let's meet him. Let's see him. Then we can say, "My Lord and my God." We're saying words, we're singing songs, and we're preaching sermons. But do they really count until I see Jesus, until I see those sacred hands wounded for me?

Fanny Crosby was blind as an infant, either six or eight weeks old, because of a physician's mistake. She was blind all her life. She never saw a human face, a sunset, or anything. But she used her imagination and she wrote "Blessed Assurance," some of the most beautiful hymns that we sing today.

In his name, look upon Jesus. Look upon the cross. Now you will cry out, "My Lord and my God." Now you will bow before him and he will breathe on you the power of the Holy Spirit, and you will truly rise up as an overcomer, not as a sit-back, relax, Sunday worshiper.

Listen to what Fanny Crosby wrote when she used her imagination. She saw his prints, although she never saw with these eyes. With the eye of faith, she saw what the human eye could not see. She wrote, "When my life work is ended and I cross the swelling tide, when the bright and glorious morning I shall see, I shall know my Redeemer when I reach the other side, and his smile will be the first to welcome me. Oh, I shall know him. I shall know him by redeemed by his side I shall stand. I shall know him. I shall know him by the print of the nails in his hand."

She knew that Jesus took her place. She knew he carried scars and he kept scars for her so that she could pray through her journey of life on her way to that place. What she used her imagination to see then, she would see face-to-face when he smiled upon her.

He's here today when you come to this altar. I don't know what you've been looking at, what you've been talking about, or what you've been thinking about. It's no longer time to pout. It's time to look to Jesus and rejoice in the Lord, for you become what you think and what you see. If you see Jesus, you'll become like Jesus and be able to say, "My Lord and my God."

Think of Jesus. See that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on a cross in the darkness of God's forsakenness so that we might live the abundant life now and have the hope of heaven to come. I want to see him. I will know him, and you will know him by the print of the nails in his hand.

That's his spiritual social security number. That's his identity. What a Savior. Father God, you so loved the world that you gave your son, your only son, that whosoever, old or young, educated or ignorant, rich or poor—it matters not—that whosoever believes in him, that he died and took the scars, shall have everlasting life that begins right now.

I'm living right now in eternity, and I'll just change existence someday shortly from an earthly life to the heavenly life. In my heart, I see the scars. He kept those scars. He reminded me to remember him. He reminded himself to remember me and each of us. Thank you for saving us. We give you praise.

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