Luke 6, 7

Luke 6, 7

Overview:  Jesus teaches, offering blessings and woes.  He goes to Capernaum where he heals the slave of a centurion who helped to build the Synagogue there.  He heals the hand of a man on the Sabbath and he goes to dinner at the home of a Pharisee.

Two verses, on in Luke 6 and one in Luke 7, that catch my attention as I read through them today.  First, Luke 6:19, "And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them."  And in Luke 7:39, "Now when the Phrarisee who had invited him saw it he said to himself, 'If this man were a prophet; he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him - that she is a sinner.'"  I am drawn to language in both of these verses that again points unblinkingly to Christ's physical presence.  To his ability to touch and be touched.  God came as Christ with a message, but the message was delivered by a real live human messenger.  One who could touch and speak and see and be touched and seen and heard.  Jesus is a not an intellectual experience, Jesus engages all the senses.  There is an echo here of the woman who touches Jesus hoping to be healed and whose presence he detects when she touches him.  The power flows out of him to those around him in need of healing.  The Pharisee expects that Jesus should know this woman anointing his feet by the virtue of her touch alone - that is he should know she is a shady person of questionable background.  Jesus in fact does know her by her touch, not in some mysterious reading of her character, but in a more fundamental way - her touch conveys her compassion as she ministers to him in a way that his host had not.
All of this touching and pointing to the engagement of the senses reminds us that we are folks who see, feel, touch and so on, walking around amongst other folks who do likewise.  However we bear witness to Jesus, if it is to be believable must be consistent with what folks can see and feel and experience of us.  Our aim must be to emulate less the Pharisee host and more the compassionate woman as we live our faith from day to day.