The TOUCH

19 January 2011

Read Luke 8:40-56

“Who touched me?” Jesus asked. (Luke 8:45)

Jesus senses the power draining from him through one particular person's touch even though he is pressed against the crowd. Someone has deliberately touched him.

The woman is not supposed to touch Jesus. She is unclean. A woman suffering from internal bleeding is unclean, and pollutes everything and everyone she comes into contact with. She is desperate. She probably has spent all her money on medication but nothing has helped. "If only i could touch him - it is enough to heal me,' dominates her thoughts as she makes her way closer and closer to Jesus. She will touch him, be healed and be gone. But Jesus now requests that she owns up. She does admit to her act and Jesus commends her for her faith and her desire for healing is fulfilled.

If the passage before asks, :'Where is your faith", the woman would have replied, 'in you is my faith". In a society that consistently looks down on woman, this woman is highlighted for her faith.

There is healing in Jesus' touch - that's what the Scriptures say today. There is power in Jesus. To touch Jesus is to allow His power to flow to us for healing and wholeness. Whatever I am struggling with, no matter how long (the woman suffers for 12 years), Jesus can end my pain - if only I come to Him and touch him in faith.

After healing the woman, Jesus proceeds to Jairus' house. He touches Jarius' daughter who is already dead - thus, a corpse.

In the first incident, an unclean woman touches him - thus making him unclean by her touch. Now, Jesus touches a corpse - voluntarily making himself unclean by the act. But in touching the corpse, Jesus releases His power and she is raised from the dead.

In both stories, we are told again that Jesus is the 'lamb that takes away the sin of the world'. He gets himself dirty, polluted because of us. He is the innocent sharing in the guilty - being polluted by our sins. He willingly does so.

The power that drains from His being is love. The love that compels Him to reach out and touch us and be touched by us.

Come to Jesus. Praise and thank Him for in Him we will be made whole. In Him we will be set free. In Him we are loved.

Touch him now and be touched by Him. Then go touch the world and be touched by the world.