“Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself:
handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.”
(Luke 24:39)
The risen Lord did not leave His disciples to wonder. He did not ask them to accept a spiritual explanation detached from history. Instead, He stood before them and spoke plainly. He commanded them to look. He invited them to touch. He directed their attention to His hands and His feet, to the marks that anchored His resurrection to the cross they had witnessed, curing their fear and unbelief with truth.
Christ knew the condition of their hearts. They were scared and vulnerable. But instead of rebuking them for their weakness, He met that weakness with reality. He said, “Handle me, and see.” Christ’s resurrection was a public, bodily reality. The same Jesus who had been crucified now stood among them alive, possessing flesh and bones, hands and feet. This was the same Jesus, now raised in power and glory.
This truth matters because the temptation to blur the resurrection is not a new one. It feels safer to speak of resurrection as an idea, a symbol, or a spiritual truth that floats above history. Yet Christ grounds our faith in what actually happened. If His body did not rise, then sin was not conquered, death was not defeated, and hope collapses into sentiment. The resurrection is not meaningful because it inspires; it is meaningful because it is true.[1]
Christ’s humanity did not dissolve at the resurrection. It was glorified but not erased. His body remains a true body; He is in heaven in His glorified humanity, seated at the right hand of the Father, and He will remain there until the appointed time when He returns in the same way He ascended. To deny this is to dishonor the incarnation.
Holding fast to the risen Christ means believing Scripture without apology and resisting claims that deny the plain testimony of God’s Word and the honest witness of sense. Christ Himself appealed to sight and touch to confirm the faith of His followers. He did not pit faith against reality but commanded reality to serve faith.
And though Christ’s body is in heaven, His Spirit is present in majesty, providence, and grace. He reigns, He intercedes, and He governs His church. So when our faith is tested, let us hold fast to the risen Christ, the same Jesus who said, “It is I myself, touch and see.”
Contemplations:
- Christ did not leave me to wonder. Christ did not shame His disciples for wanting certainty but commanded them to test what was true: “Handle me, and see.” That confirms that my faith need not be built on emotion but grounded in the Christ of Scripture, who truly rose from the dead. I ask for a faith, Lord, that is steadied by truth when I feel weak or unsure.
- I am tempted to demand what God has not promised. There is something in me that wants more than faith, as if the sign must become the thing itself in order to be effective. But this is unbelief disguised as reverence. God has promised that the supper is a true means of grace, a seal of the covenant, and a real feeding on Christ by faith.
- My senses can serve my faith. Christ taught His disciples to use sight and touch honestly. Scripture does not ask me to deny what is plain and then call it holiness, so I need courage and wisdom to believe Scripture fully and to realize that Christ taught that honesty serves faith, not threatens it.
- Christ’s humanity is my hope, not a detail. My salvation depends on Christ truly taking flesh, truly dying, and truly rising. The comfort of knowing that a man, God the Son incarnate, stands in heaven for me should not be flattened into abstraction. I want to live and die holding to the same Jesus who stood before His disciples and said, “It is I myself.”
Prayer (supplication)
Lord God, make me hold fast to the risen Jesus Christ. Do not allow my faith to soften into language that avoids truth. Press Luke 24:39 into my heart and let these words of Christ confront my doubts and bolster my faith, “Behold my hands and my feet.” Drive away every impulse to treat the resurrection as a symbol rather than a fact. And anchor me in the truth that the crucified Christ retains His flesh and bones humanity, equally with His divinity, forever.
Teach me to honor Christ as true God and true man, one mediator. Let me rejoice that His body is real, glorified, and in heaven, and that He will remain there until He returns as He promised.
Strengthen me in my use of Your ordinances and give me confidence in what You have promised. Teach me to receive the bread and the cup as holy signs and seals, through which Christ is truly given to faith by the Holy Spirit. Lift my soul upward to Christ instead of allowing me to drag Him down into my imagination.
Give me a hunger for Christ Himself. Raise my faith to where He is seated at the right hand of the Father. And when I come to the table, expose my sin, deepen my repentance, and renew my obedience. Let the word and the sacraments work together in me so that I truly feed on Christ and walk in holiness.
Guard my heart when weariness tempts me to settle for ease instead of truth, and keep me fixed on the plain testimony of Christ. And transform my life into a clear confession of the Christ who rose, who reigns, and who will return.
In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.
Further Scripture References for Luke 24:39:
1 John 1:1, John 20:27, Acts 1:3, 1 Thess. 5:23
[1] Thomas Gataker, A Discussion of the Popish Doctrine of Transubstantiation (London: John Legat for William Sheffard, and are to be sold at his shop at the entering in of Pope’s Head Alley out of Lumbard Street, 1624), 22.
