The marks of love

He said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have" (Luke 24:38-39).

In an English cathedral stand statues of a crusader knight and his lovely lady. If one looks closely, you can see that the statue of the lady is missing its’ right hand. The church records indicate that in one of the wars of the Crusades this English knight, fighting under the banner of Richard the Lionhearted, was taken prisoner. He begged Saladin, the leader of the Muslim forces, to spare his life and set him free for the sake of the love that his lady back home bore for him. But Saladin scoffed at him, saying that it would not be long before she forgot about her missing knight and married someone else. The knight assured him that his lady would never do such a thing; she would always remain faithful to his memory, so long as there was hope that he remained alive.

Saladin challenged the knight’s faith in his lady. He said that if the woman would send her right hand as evidence of her love for her husband, he would set the knight free. When the letter reached the lady in England, she promptly had her right hand severed and sent in a bag to the Muslim leader. When Saladin saw that hand, he freed the soldier and sent him back to England. That amputated hand was the irrefutable proof of the lady’s devotion to her beloved.

The irrefutable proof of our Savior’s love lies in His hands. When we look at Jesus’ open palms, we see the permanent scars caused by the nails that held Him to the cross. Jesus came down to earth from His Father in heaven to be subjected to the worst form of death devised by men, death by crucifixion. Jesus was fastened to a wooden cross by nails through His hands and feet to suffer a slow, agonizing death. He accepted this punishment willingly, even though He never once in His life did a single thing to anger God. The Son of God accepted the sentence of death that by all rights should have been ours. We anger God every day. When we try to fix our mistakes, we only make things worse. Only Jesus could set right the wrongs that we have committed. He was scarred to ensure our safety from God’s righteous anger. And He has willingly borne those scars ever since, as permanent proof of His immeasurable devotion to us.