I couldn’t resist those words from Isaiah: ‘strengthen the weak hands and make firm the feeble knees.’ Weak hands and feeble knees.
Looking around this morning, I’m sure many of us would directly benefit if such a prayer were answered. And perhaps it’s an especially appropriate text for remembering Luke the Evangelist.
Because we can sometimes imagine the saints and evangelists as people who were stronger, braver and more certain than the rest of us. People who knew exactly what God wanted. People whose faith never wavered. People whose hands were always strong and whose knees were never feeble.
But Scripture gives us something rather different. The people that God calls are very often people who discover that they are not strong enough on their own. And that’s part of the good news of Luke’s story.
The beloved physician
We know very little about Luke personally. Paul calls him ‘the beloved physician’ in Colossians, so he was thought to be a doctor. The Church has traditionally associated him with both the Gospel which bears his name and as the writer of the Acts of the Apostles. The allusions he makes to the writings of classical Greek authors imply that he was well educated.
But what Luke leaves us is not a portrait of himself. He leaves us a portrait of Jesus. And perhaps that is what makes him an evangelist.
The evangelist is not the person who says: “Look at me. Look how strong my faith is.” The evangelist is the person who says: “Look at Jesus.” Look at the one who comes among the sick and the broken. Look at the one who welcomes those that others overlook. Look at the one who notices the outsider. Look at the one who tells stories in which mercy is stronger than judgement. Look at the one who goes towards the people whom others would rather avoid.
Weakness met with mercy
And that is why the Isaiah image of weak hands and feeble knees fits Luke so well. Because Luke’s Gospel is full of people who need their weakness to be met with mercy: the poor; the sick; the grieving; the stranger; the sinner; the person who has failed; the person who has been excluded; the person who has almost forgotten that they are worth anything at all.
Again and again, Luke tells us: Jesus sees them. Jesus touches them. Jesus listens to them. Jesus gives them back their dignity. Jesus strengthens weak hands and feeble knees.
And then, in that same Gospel reading, Jesus does something remarkable. He sends ordinary people out to do the same. “The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few.”
And he says something which sounds almost like the opposite of what we would expect. He does not tell them to go because they are powerful. He does not give them impressive resources. He does not promise them an easy journey. Instead, he tells them that they are going like lambs into the midst of wolves – which must have really filled them with confidence!
Not invulnerable
Take no purse. No bag. No sandals. Go. Travel light and announce that the kingdom of God has come near.
There is something quite moving about that. God’s work is entrusted to people who are not invulnerable but to people who can be frightened. People who can get things wrong. People whose hands sometimes shake. People whose knees sometimes buckle. People who need strengthening themselves.
Perhaps that is Luke’s message to the Church. You don’t have to be strong enough before God can use you. You do not have to have everything sorted out. You do not have to be fearless. You do not have to know all the answers. You simply have to be willing to go where Christ sends you.
Only Luke
And maybe that’s why Paul says to Timothy: “Do your work as an evangelist.” And then, almost at the end of his life, Paul says of Luke: “Only Luke is with me.”
There is something very tender about those words. “Only Luke is with me.” He doesn’t say he’s preaching or performing miracles or doing anything spectacular. He’s simply there.
And sometimes that is the ministry people need most. To have someone there. Someone who stays. Someone who listens. Someone who doesn’t need to fix everything. Someone who can sit beside weakness without being frightened by it.
The beloved physician. The evangelist. The companion. The person who stays.
I think that’s one of the ways in which Luke’s ministry speaks to us today. We live in a world which often tells us that we should be strong. That we should cope. That we should manage. That weakness is something to hide. But the Gospel tells us something different – weakness is not the place where God abandons us.
Sometimes it is precisely the place where we discover that we need one another. And sometimes it is precisely that place where Christ meets us.
God is with us
So, perhaps the words of Isaiah are words for us: Strengthen the weak hands. Make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are of a fearful heart: “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God.”
Notice the promise. It doesn’t say: “Here is your strength.” Instead, it says: “Here is your God.”
The answer to human weakness is not always that we become stronger people. Sometimes the answer is that we discover that God is with us. That Christ goes with us. That the Spirit strengthens us. That there are other people beside us. That when our hands are weak, someone else may lend us theirs. When our knees are feeble, someone else may help us stand. And when our faith is fragile, someone else may hold faith for us for a while.
That is one of the gifts Luke gives the Church. A Gospel of mercy. A Gospel which notices the overlooked. A Gospel which tells us that God’s kingdom comes near to ordinary people. And a reminder that the people God sends are themselves ordinary people. People with weak hands. People with feeble knees. People who sometimes need healing. People who sometimes need carrying. And yet still people whom God calls.
God will not leave us
So, today, on this feast of Luke, perhaps we should not pray to become people who never feel weak. Perhaps we should pray to become people who know what to do with weakness. To bring it to Christ. To bring it into community. To refuse to be ashamed of it. And to allow God to use even our weakness as a place from which love can begin.
Because the Christian hope is not that we will never feel weak or feeble, but that when we do, God will not leave us there. The God who strengthened Luke, the God who accompanied Paul, the God whom Jesus proclaimed, is still among us.
And so, this is our prayer today: When our hands are weak, strengthen them. When our knees are feeble, make them firm. When our hearts are fearful, remind us: “Here is your God.”
And when you send us out, send us not because we are strong, but because you are. Amen.
For weak hands and feeble knees
Blessed are you
sent into places
you did not choose,
and to people
you did not know,
carrying little
except the hope
that you might bring
some peace.
Blessed are you
who have entered
another person’s story
and found
that you cannot
heal everything –
but you can
stay awhile.
May the God
who makes
the wilderness bloom
open your eyes
to signs of life
where others
see only desert.
May the Christ
who heals
the broken-hearted
give you gentleness
with those
whose wounds
you cannot see.
May the Spirit
give you courage
to speak good news
without needing
to have every answer,
and humility
to receive
as well as give.
And where the road
has become lonely,
may you find
companions
along the way.
Whenever you feel weak or feeble
and where the work
has become heavy,
may you remember
that the harvest
does not depend
on you alone.
And wherever
you are welcomed,
may you bring peace.
Wherever
you are needed,
may you bring hope.
Wherever
someone is hurting,
may you bring
the assurance
that they have not
been forgotten.
For the God
who sends you
goes before you.
And the Christ
whose good news
you carry
is already there.
Amen
‘Weak hands and feeble knees’ was delivered by Ian Banks at St John and St Mark’s, Bury on 18th October 2026, Luke the Evangelist. It was based on Isaiah 35:3-6; 2 Timothy 4:5-17 and Luke 10:1-9.