Stretch Our Your Hands

My father was diagnosed with Early-stage Alzheimer’s about 5 years ago. He is turning 88 this October, so the diagnosis came when he was much older than the average age of diagnosis, which is typically around the age of 65. My mother is his primary caretaker, although they live close to many of my brothers and sisters, who all help to some capacity on a pretty consistent basis.

Recently I read this verse from the Gospel of John and it struck me in a new way. While going through Discipleship Deliverance, I learned that the meaning of the belt in scripture is based on the understanding of covenant. The belt is one of the exchanges made when entering into covenant and it symbolizes strength; think of the championship belt won in sports that is given to the winner and is a symbol of their strength. Both people who are entering into covenant with one another will bring their belts, their strengths, with them and surrender their strengths to the other, to be at service to the other. With God and our covenant relationship with Him, He definitely gets the better deal. We give Him our strengths, which are limited, and He gives us His strengths (graces), which are infinite.

In this passage from the Gospel of John, Jesus is speaking to Peter. After the resurrection, Peter and some of the other apostles had just gone back to their old profession of fishing because they did not know where to go or what to do next. They went back to what they knew, what they were good at and relied on their own strength to move forward. Jesus sees this and takes a moment to explain to Peter that up until this point he has lived his life using his own strength. Jesus then calls Peter to this exchange of belts, which will give Peter the strength, through grace, to take up the mission Jesus has set out for him, namely to start the Church and to eventually die as a martyr.

Throughout the Gospels, Jesus invites people to discipleship. Every encounter Jesus has with a person in scripture is an invitation to follow Him, to be a disciple, to “take up [their] cross and follow [Him]” (Matthew 16:24). This encounter with Peter after the resurrection is no different. Here we find Jesus calling Peter to “stretch out [his] hands.” This is no simple task if you really think about it. To stretch out your hands is to place yourself in a position of vulnerability, to be like Jesus at the crucifixion, hands nailed to either side of the cross. This is a position of vulnerability, but is also the position of great love. Jesus is ultimately calling Peter to disciple others, to follow Him by becoming the teacher. This requires Peter to first surrender himself to the Lord, to be vulnerable, so that he can offer his whole heart to others as a pure gift of God’s love and mercy.

With our arms outstretched, we give up control for ourselves. In a certain sense, we let the other do for us what we could do for ourself, but in this instance the other is the Lord. Jesus invites Peter to let Him be the one to fasten his belt, to give Peter His strength and power (grace), in order to truly follow the path that Jesus has set out for him. It is Jesus who will carry Peter from that point onward and Peter will no longer be relying on his own strength, his own understanding, but he will be relying completely on the Lord. This is the greatest gift we could ever receive, the Lord carrying us with His strength throughout our lives, but it is understood only in the light of being led to “where [we] do not wish to go.”

The path that God has for us is not our own. It takes complete surrender and total trust in the Lord. We all wrestle with letting God lead us because more often than not He is leading us to places that will stretch us and humble us. These are not things we desire in our human nature. We want ease and comfort, we want to be praised and honored, and yet God did not make us for such a life. He made us to follow Him and when we do that we find true and lasting peace and happiness.

The journey that my father is on is one of complete surrender. I can only imagine what he has gone through in his mind and heart since his diagnosis. I can only imagine how he has wrestled with God. From what I can see, my father is suffering with grace. He is wearing the belt of Christ, which means at some point my father has stretched out his hands and surrendered his own strength (belt) to the Lord. I am certain that my father has experienced deep interior struggle, one that only those who have been diagnosed with such a disease would know or understand. Yet, as I watch him decline and his memory slowly being lost, I find hope in this passage of the encounter between Jesus and Peter, and I look to the beauty of what the Lord is doing for my father in this, his final journey to eternity.

Jesus speaks two very important words to Peter at the conclusion of this call. He says to Peter, “follow me” (John 21:19). These two words will echo throughout all of eternity as some of the most important, if not the most important words of Jesus. In their simplest form, they are the words of the call of each and every one of us, to follow Jesus. What they mean will vary at different points in our lives and from one person to the next, but the call remains true. For my father right now, it means being a living witness of stretching out your hands in full surrender to the Lord, receiving the belt of God’s grace, and letting the Lord carry you to where you do not wish to go. In our life and in our death, let us never shy away from first stretching out our hands.