Touch
Mike Flynn - Vicar
For my own prayer time in recent weeks I have been reading the gospels and I have been struck by how much of Jesus’ ministry was marked by touch. From the touch of John at his baptism, to his signs of God by his words and hands - whether that is taking the hand of a dead girl and raising her to life or taking in his hands a small meal of rye bread and dried fish and breaking it to feed the fainting crowds. Touching the unclean who had not been touched for the long years they had been ill.
The crowds themselves travelled for days into deserted places in the hope of just touching the edge of his clothes for healing. Then there is the horrible irony that the body the crowds sought for healing ends up beaten by fists and torn by barbed whips in an almost casual hatred. He is scarred by sleeper nails and left to hang naked on a main road during a major festival. ‘By his wounds we are healed’ wrote Isaiah long before it happened. Then his body is raised to eternal life, Mary grasps his feet not wanting to let go, he eats with his friends, he tells Thomas to touch his wounds - see, see, the scars, touch the flesh… it is I.
The idea of God touching holds a long lineage and a bright future for us. Genesis 2 tells us of an intimate moment in creation when the artist draws close to his work and forms humanity from the soil of the earth and breathes life into us. Revelation 21 tells us about a voice from the throne in the centre of heaven which says that the same God, God himself will be with his people and: ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes.’ Touch.
If we are feeling the absence of friends and family, the excitement of a crowd, the elation of singing or dancing together, the comfort of a coffee with a friend, the handshake, the hug, kisses of welcome on the cheek during this time of isolation - there is a reason for it. We were created to touch. I am not offering a solution, only recognition that this time will be inhumanly hard for many in Melbourne. Can I encourage you, in a time when our routines have been constantly changed, we are tired because of this and it is easy to lapse into bingeing of some form as a version of pain relief, that you please seek to maintain a pattern in your daily life with God. Please ask for his help each day to practise the presence of God in your life to sustain you. He understands the need - he made it. I am not asking you to try harder, you have enough of that in your life already, I am asking you to quietly seek his grace, his gift of himself to you so we can wait well for the time when we can touch again.
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