Touch me again

WE read in the New Testament that Jesus is ‘God with us’ (Matthew 1:23 all quotations from New International Version). So we may claim that the touch of the human hand of Jesus was also the touch of God.

In Mark 8:22–26 we read that when people brought a blind man to Jesus, he spat on the man’s eyes and then put his hands on him. (The same action is recorded in John 9:6, with the added detail that he spat on the ground and made some mud, putting that on the man’s eyes.)

This action would not have surprised the onlookers. Scholars tell us that first-century Jews believed there was healing power in human spittle. So do we; when you burn your finger, don’t you put it into your mouth?

However, the story in Mark chapter eight is unique in that it records a two-stage miracle. After the initial moistening, Jesus placed his hands on the man’s eyes. The man saw people, but in a distorted form, which he likened to trees walking about. Whatever the explanation, Jesus was not prepared to leave the man with imperfect vision. Unusually, he placed his hands over the man’s eyes for a second time. Then, the man saw clearly.

Many new converts speak of being given spiritual sight. We rejoice in that. But I think many of us have known a time when we realised that a ‘second touch’ was needed if we were more clearly to see the will of God – or to see others around us not as competitors, enemies or irritating distractions, but as people to be loved as individuals of infinite worth to God.

This need of a ‘second touch’ is expressed in songs 610 and 628 in the songbook: ‘Wonderful Healer, touch me again’ and ‘Another touch, I ask another still’.

In the final hours of Christ’s earthly life, all four Gospels tell us that when the gang sent by the chief priests to arrest Jesus invaded the garden of Gethsemane, the disciples tried to make a fight of it. One of them – possibly Simon Peter – drew a sword.

All four Gospels also mention that a slash of the sword severed the ear of a servant of the high priest. All four tell us that Jesus immediately stopped the fighting. Only Luke, the doctor, tells us that Jesus then touched the man who had come to help arrest him: ‘And he touched the man’s ear and healed him’ (22:51).

It is odd that the other evangelists should have left this out, especially as John even gives us the man’s name, Malchus. This leads to the speculation that he later became a Christian, and so was known in the Early Church. It is tantalising to speculate on what is meant by ‘healing’ when an ear has been cut off. How does one heal an amputation?

What we must note, however, is that Jesus was not only determined to prevent a free-for-all; he was also concerned for one of his foes who came to take him to trial and crucifixion. On this occasion the healing touch of Jesus was saying: ‘I forgive you, and your wellbeing matters to me.’

We may not be able to emulate Jesus in exercising the gift of healing, but all may follow his example in stretching out a hand of friendship or service to those who are hostile. In this we follow the example of Jesus, and sometimes – just sometimes – the hand of God may reach through our words or actions to turn ardent adversaries into eager evangelists.

For a final example we must go to the beginning of John’s vision of Christ in glory: ‘When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: “Do not be afraid. I am… the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever!” (Revelation 1:17 and 18).

This is the same Lord who walked the lanes of Galilee. On earth he often stretched out his hand to touch those in need, imparting new health and strength, new hope and life. So, in Heaven, he does exactly that for his lonely, exiled follower.

He will do the same for us when we look upwards, needing his hand upon us!

• Colonel Guy lives in retirement in West Wickham