Physical touch is powerful. It can ignite passion. It can calm the nervous soul. Children who are not physically touched in appropriate ways on a regular basis develop maladaptively. Children who are touched inappropriately, pervertedly, tend to become sick in their spirits as adults and abuse others. Physical touch is powerful.

One thing that sets physical touch apart from the other senses, except perhaps taste, is that physical touch is active as well as passive. Passively, you can feel the clothes on your body, the touch of another invading your space and changes in the temperature. No effort is required to feel these things. Yet there is an active aspect to physical touch. In order for me to feel money, I must get off my rump and work for it. In order for me to touch my wife sensually, I must love her as she needs to be loved.

What happens when the body does not move to actively experience different sensations? Bed sores. I believe the same can be said for the human soul. Certainly the same can be said for authentic faith. Faith is belief that spurs one to action for a purpose. Beliefs without action lead to a Christian life of bed sores.

Matthew 9:18-27

There are two remarkable stories here: That of the perpetually bleeding woman and that of the two blind men. In both of these stories the sick people actively, physically push past adversity to touch Jesus. They did not wait on Jesus to come to them; they went to Him. He touched them.

Matthew 9:9-17

In both of these stories Jesus is criticized. In the first story Jesus is criticized for his voluntary and extended physical contact with undesirables. In the second story Jesus touches food, while John’s disciples and Pharisees regularly abstain from touching food for extended periods of time. In the first story Jesus explains to his critics that He was touching the heart of the prophets by touching needy souls, while they are missing the heart of God. In the second story Jesus explains that their old attitudes and ways of doing things (the old wine skins) must be replaced by new attitudes and ways of doing things (new wine skins) in order to receive the fresh wine from God. Keep in mind Jesus is not speaking about replacing Torah (Matthew 5:17-20). Rather He is hoping to return their hearts and moods back to the heart of the prophets and God.

Thus, Jesus is truly doing new things (Matthew 9:32-34). He desires to bring new, fresh wine through the Holy Spirit constantly. The question is are we willing to constantly physically seek out Jesus to touch Him, constantly giving Him our old wineskins for new ones? When we enc0unter people in the neighborhoods and Nations, do we whet their appetites and create itches that need to be scratched by the Spirit of God?

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