Year in the Bible Week 12

Moses’ Testament and Death by Luca Signorelli (1481-82), on a wall of the Sistine Chapel. The ceiling was painted 30 years later by Michelangelo.

This week we read God’s instructions to the people at the end of Moses’ life, and Moses blesses the tribes of Israel. Moses was God’s intermediary and had the enormous responsibility of being the hands and feet of God many times, from the court of Pharoah, to the Red Sea, to the wilderness. When God used Moses as his hands and feet, Moses had to be totally in God’s will to even survive, doing only and exactly what God commanded. Even Moses could not do it every single day, and for this he never entered the promised land.

As Christians, we like to call ourselves the “hands and feet of Jesus” when we walk the world in kindness, follow the scriptures, and work to grow the kingdom. Forgive me for sounding a bit preachy today, but I think as we serve him and do his will in the world, we very often do a couple things that miss the mark. First, we tend to convince ourselves that we are his hands and feet just because we walk in obedience to his words and try to do what it says. Does this really make us his hands and feet? We have vowed to do our best to grow the kingdom and keep God’s commandments, yet we desperately need his grace just to cover our weakness and disobedience as we try! The apostle Paul would instead call himself a slave for Christ, and as humbling as it is to characterize our lives that way, it seems to fit better. A slave is an imperfect creature, obeying his master and executing his will. He serves his master. Perhaps occasionally a slave will feel the honor and importance of executing the will of the master directly, and once in a while the slave can celebrate acting as his master’s hands and feet. That’s where our second folly often lies. When we talk of being his hands and feet, does it come with a fearful sense of celebration? Or do we frame it as a burden? Moses understood that being the hands and feet of God meant being in a place that was far above his station. He was fearful and thankful.

As we read the next few chapters Moses dies, Joshua takes command, and the Israelites cross the Jordan. As the hands and feet of God they sweep away everything in their path. For this brief time the entire nation gets to feel the unique combination of lowliness, exhilaration and triumph that comes from knowing that you are actually doing God’s work.

I pray that we can feel the honor and blessing of being God’s hands and feet, even if only briefly.