Each year as we read through these post Resurrection appearances of Jesus during this Easter season, different things about each stand out. Today Jesus appears to the apostles as a group in that upper room. AS He shows them His wounds, making sure they realize He is not a ghost, I became focused on His hands as He extends them forth and I began to reflect on all the ways Jesus used His hands throughout His ministry to spread the message He came to preach.
    How often did He lay his hands upon the sick to impart healing; upon the dead to bring them back to life? How often did He raise His hands in blessing to impart forgiveness; to transform water into wine; to multiply five loaves and two fish to feed the thousands? Or when He raised His hands in protest about using His Father’s house as a marketplace? Or when he embraced the little children when they came to Him and reminded us that unless we become like them we cannot enter the kingdom of God?
    And in one of His final acts of service, he used His hands to gently bathe the feet of His disciples that we might learn to serve one another.
    And finally those same hands stretched out on the cross in that final act of generosity to gain for us salvation. In today’s gospel reading, the simple act of showing His wounded hands captures the essence of His message.
    Jesus uses all the senses, and as we reflect this day, specifically the sense of touch to communicate the gospel message of salvation.
    At that last supper, Jesus says to the apostles: as I have done for you so you must do for one another. That command is meant for us as well. Jesus asks us to extend our hands in generosity to one another. To feed the hungry, to shelter the homeless, to touch the hearts of those who are lonely and broken and burdened. To act as Jesus did to spread the good news of salvation.
    May we extend ourselves for one another and demonstrate that Jesus is Truly Risen and lives in the hearts of all His people.