Touch

“When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak because she thought, ‘if I just touch his clothes I will be healed.’” Mark 5:27-28


Touch. A basic part of our human interactions, but now we are very scared of touch. As the news of swine flu has intensified, people everywhere are getting anxious about the cost of touching another person or being in close proximity to someone who might be ill. My own sister was worried that my bronchitis might actually be swine flu. She was momentarily afraid for her children. I had spent part of a warm Saturday with them having a great water gun battle. We are all so in need of touch and yet, rightly so, we have to live in this time where human touch just might be the enemy.

A woman who had bleeding problems reached out and touched the cloak of Jesus. She had heard of him and knew that if she could get close to him, she would be healed. And she was, and Jesus knew her in that simple touch. The power went out from him to her and he sought her out. He knew her by touch and she fell before him in fear, mixed with overwhelming gratitude. The contact with Jesus made all the difference in her life. Where once she was and weak and pained outcast, now she had was strong since she had touched the source of love. She knew Jesus, and was never the same.

Today, I want to remember how powerful touch can be. I want to remember how many people are rarely embraced and never patted on the back. I want to be an instrument of compassion this day in a time when we are fearful of one another. May God grant us all the strength in this time of epidemic anxiety to rest in the loving arms of our Creator, and to embrace the lonely and the outcast in the power of love.