The Power of Touch

This week's message was about the power of touch.  Having just spent some time in the emergency room, caressing the arm of a sick child, I was probably more in tune with that idea than I normally would be.  Touch is intimate, calming, healing.  It is critical to the development of children - how many stories have you heard about orphans who fail to thrive when all their needs are met, except human touch?  And at the end of life, when all of our other senses fail, touch most often remains.

The scriptural foundation for the message is John 20:19-31, when Jesus appeared to the disciples, inviting them to touch his wounds.  That act demonstrated more powerfully than words just how intimate and vulnerable their relationship was.  I have always wondered just where Thomas was when that happened, and then I imagine how he must have felt when he returned.  Their leader had just been executed.  They fully expected persecution, and perhaps execution themselves.  No one had been unequivocally appointed to be their leader, although John could tell you which was the "one whom Jesus loved."  The relationships between them as individuals and the group dynamic were all in state of change, and Thomas had missed out on the one, big, unifying and  defining event - Jesus' return.  


Wouldn't you be disappointed?  Alienated?  Angry?  I can see how in that power vacuum Thomas felt like he was being cut from the herd.  It may have been petulant, but I find it completely human and understandable for Thomas to have said he wouldn't believe Jesus appeared until he saw it for himself.  And this is the point in the narrative where we judge Thomas and find him so weak, peevish and faithless.  Who wants to be a Doubting Thomas?


The more I think about it, the more I do.  The beauty in this story, the point that I have missed before, is that God understood and accepted Thomas' questions, pouting, and doubts.  Jesus came back just for Thomas.  God knew that like those orphans, Thomas needed the comfort and reassurance of God's touch in order to grow in his faith. And that tells me that when I doubt and have questions, when I really need reassurance, God will come back for me, just like he did for Thomas.