“But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.” Luke 8:46
Touch. It is a powerful way we can let someone know they are alive in this world. Someone saw them and then shook their hand or gave them a hug. Maybe you just brushed up against someone and apologized for bumping them, and even in that small way, subconsciously we are reminded we are alive in this busy, bustling world.
I think the pandemic showed us the reality of why touch is the most important sense. We need to be touched. Psychologists even have a name for the lack of touch and the feelings of deprivation and abandonment that are associated with it: “skin hunger.” I love that term. I don’t love why it is named that. I don’t love the fact someone has been deprived of touch and that is what they feel. But the term is very descriptive.
In Luke chapter eight, there is a section that tells the story of a dead girl and a sick woman. They don’t even deserve names and are just described by their condition. Dead and sick. The woman is skin hungry. She has an issue of blood that has made her unclean in this rule following culture. Check off all the boxes. Make sure you follow every rule, every day. Don’t miss any or you will be unclean, unsaved, unworthy. They missed the point of all the rules! They are there to show them how people are unable to follow all the rules every day of their lives. It isn’t possible to be perfect…so we need grace.
This woman has been declared unclean and her condition has lasted twelve years. Twelve years! She has been ostracized from community, she has not been able to be with her friends and hug them, hold their hand, laugh and talk about their children and grandchildren. She has been unable to attend worship. She is unclean and can’t go to Temple. She is unable to touch her husband, to hug him, to let him love her. She is skin hungry. She is desperate.
So desperate she tried everything to be cured. She spent all she has on doctors who in this time in history can only offer quack remedies for what she really needs. Which is probably a hysterectomy. She has nothing left but the longing to be healed so she could also be touched. And her desperation gives her courage. She braves the crowds. She has heard about Jesus. He is her last hope. She quietly moves through the people. I am sure she brushed up against more than a few. But she is single-minded in her determination. As she draws close, she comes up behind Jesus, stretches out her hand and touches the hem of his cloak. She knows in an instant she is healed.
Touch is powerful. It conveys nuances our words can’t speak. It is the first language we learn as an infant. It encourages our brains to produce more serotonin, the feel-good chemicals in our brains. It has been shown to reduce pain and fatigue. Touch offers comfort and expresses feelings of love. Touch can be both bad and good and making sure you have permission to hug someone is important. People are different and some are more tactile than others. For this unnamed woman in scripture, touch healed. Jesus felt her touch, then saw her and brought her back into community with one word: Daughter. Jesus, even though the author of her healing, tells her that it was her faith that made her well. She would no longer be skin hungry.
I love this quote I found about touch written by Joe Moran: “We were meant to hold people close and feel the bones in their back and the rise and fall of their chests, and remind each other that we are warm bodies, still breathing, still alive.” We do this through the life-giving power of touch. Touch the sense we take for granted and think doesn’t matter that much, actually matters more than we could ever imagine.
Peace,
Pastor Beth
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