“Wide Open Are Your Hands,” LBW 489
1 Wide open are your hands
To pay with more than gold
The awful debt of guilt and sin,
Forever and of old.
Ah, let me grasp those hands,
That we may never part,
And let the power of their blood
Sustain my fainting heart.
2 Wide open are your arms,
A fallen world to embrace,
To win to love and endless rest
Our wayward human race.
Lord, I am sad and poor,
But boundless is your grace;
Give me the soul-transforming joy
For which I seek your face.
3 Draw all my mind and heart
Up to your throne on high,
And let your sacred cross exalt
My spirit to the sky.
To these, your mighty hands,
My spirit I resign.
In life, I live alone to you;
In death, am yours alone.
Devotion
The hands of Christ – they have done the work of salvation. We have the need. We have fallen. But the hands of Christ do the reaching. They do the paying for our sin. They do the renewing. They give us strength.
The arms of Christ – they have opened wide to hug the whole world. They have opened to include the whole human race. We have nothing of real value that we can offer to Christ – but we can simply offer ourselves.
The change is wrought by Christ. We move; we are taken up; we are drawn by Christ’s embrace to be something completely different. We are elevated to heights of God’s presence because of Christ’s cross. Our entire lives are transformed because of what Jesus has done for us.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, your hands and your embrace have changed us. Help us to lend our hands and embrace to the ennoblement of others because of what you have done for us. Amen.