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# Hands Held Out: A Poem
- URL: https://mereorthodoxy.com/hands-held-out-poem/
- Published: 2025-09-19T11:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-05-18T14:41:43.000Z
- Description: We live by what Christ’s carpenter hands give.
- Author: Mere Orthodoxy
- Tags: Joel Kurz, Poetry

I’d spent the sermon dwelling on hands:  
*the disciples’*—plucking grains on the Sabbath  
for their grumbling stomachs; *David’s*—  
cited by Jesus in their defense, taking  
the holy bread for his hungering soldiers;  
*that man’s*—the withered one, especially,  
which Jesus told him to stretch out and  
see restored when encountered next  
in the synagogue; *others’*—mangled  
on a farm or in a factory; *my own*—held up  
so all could see the fixed finger (which  
will not flatten) that little kids ask me about;  
*Jesus’—*punctured by nails to hold him  
to wood for a grueling death, later touched  
by Thomas when restored to life; *our own*—  
which would soon reach out for his bread  
of life while kneeling at the altar. 

When that time of Eucharist came,  
I held out the chalice to each person  
ready to drink in that way and was stunned  
on seeing this man (never met) reach up  
and put his half-a-hand on the base of the cup  
to help him tip and sip the wine of salvation. 

Later, at the door, he said he understood  
what I was getting at as he held it up.  
I said I had seen and asked how.  
*A woodworking accident*, he replied,  
*with a saw that didn’t stop.*  
However our hands, we live  
by what Christ’s carpenter hands give.