While visiting a friend’s wildlife refuge he showed us a large cage of mice. He seemed to love them too. There must have been a hundred little rodents. He reached into some straw to get a baby mouse to show us. The mice jumped and ran all over his arm. I wondered why anyone would want to put their arm in there.

Isn’t that what Jesus did when He came to earth to live among people? Did the angels wonder why God would reach such pure arms into our sinful lives?

Catherine Marshall told about her father, Rev John Wood, who went to a railroad shop to talk to a man. When he reached out to shake the man’s hand, the man said, “No, my hands are too dirty from working on the train, I will get dirt on you.” Rev Wood bent down and rubbed his hands in coal dust and then said, “Will you shake hands now?”

It was not unusual for the people in the Bible who met Jesus to suddenly feel unclean. He extended to them an outreached hand from Heaven that would soon be soiled and nail pierced on the cross. These are strange times in our world, but we have hope. The Savior is still reaching down to lift us up. The hymn says,

“Once my soul was astray from the Heavenly Way,
I was wretched and as vile as could be.
But my Savior in love gave me peace from above,
When He reached down His hand for me.

When my Savior reached down for me.
When He reached down His hand for me.
I was lost and undone without God or His Son
When He reached down His hand for me”