A Handshake like Jesus'

This past week I started to re-read Wild at Heart, and I shared part of it at a Men's prayer breakfast this past weekend. The main idea of the book, for those of you who have not read it, is that men were created to be wild and free. Men were created to be powerful and dangerous. The author John Eldredge talks about how in the very beginning when man was created he was made in the wilderness, only after his creation was he placed in the Garden of Eden.

God makes both man and woman, and both are in his image, both bearing different attributes. Women have the sensitive, caring side of God, while men have the powerful, fierce side of God. We as humans have been made in the image of God, and we have a human example in Jesus Christ. In him we see both sides of God, the gentle sensitive nurturing heart, as well as the powerful and dangerous side that is a force to be reckoned with.

At the church I am currently serving at there is a man named Steve, and Steve has a handshake that I feel is identical to the one Jesus would have had. Steve worked on the railroad until he retired, he did manual labor for most of his life, and it shows. When he shakes your hand, there is so much power. I have met a lot of people in my short 23 years, but I have never had a handshake like Steve's. I work out, and I know that I have strength that the average person doesn't have, but I don't have the power that Steve has. The only thing that I can think to compare it to is like trying to squeeze a stone as it squeezes you back. You realize that with very little effort it could crush your hand. Every week I shake his hand, and every time the power he has just amazes me, it's a power that has only come from a life of hard work.

If we look at Jesus we need to realize that he too had a life of hard work. The man was a carpenter, the Greek word is tekton, which means an artisan. An artisan is a skilled craftsman. In Israel, the one thing they have plenty of is rocks, they are everywhere. If you look at the remains of the buildings from the time of Jesus they are made from stone. Yes he would have worked with wood, but most likely also with stone. This man was no stranger to hard work, nor the raw physical power that came as a result of it. And I imagine that if you shook his hand, you would notice.

If we look at the church, so often it tries to portray only one side of Jesus, the meek, gentle one who welcomed children and touched lepers. That is a crucial part of who Jesus is, but it is not the only part. Honestly, how do we ignore such a huge part of who Jesus is? I do not serve a sissy Jesus.

My Jesus was a man's man. Think simply about his death. The man would have taught all day, then had the last supper with his disciples. After this he goes directly to the Garden of Gethsemane and prays most likely for 3 hours, as Matthew and Mark seem to indicate, then he is arrested, and marched all over Jerusalem from the High priest's home, to Pilot, to Herod, and then back to Pilot. Then he receives a brutal beating to within an inch of his life, and is then given a 300 pound cross to carry. He carries it for as long as he is able to by himself, and then receives help. After he makes it to Golgotha they nail him to the cross, and then stand it up, he hangs there for hours and the most amazing thing is that he can still put together coherent sentences!

The entire time he is on the cross the spectators tell him that if he simply comes down off of it they will believe he is the Messiah. One of my college professors said this, "It took a stronger man to hang there and die than it would have to come down off of the cross and beat everyone." This man was incredible. He possessed such a strength both physically and mentally, yet so often people don't mention this side of Jesus, we don't talk about it, we don't dwell on it. Why?