Healing Touch

Over the weekend we had a wonderful St. Mark's Women's Retreat. Our speaker was the Reverend Becca Stevens from Nashville, TN. Becca has done many things, including founding a program called Magdalene, which provides women trapped in lives of drug abuse and prostitution a way to escape and regain their lives. The women have created Thistle Farms, a cottage industry which creates bath and body works and provides jobs for Magdalene graduates. One of the many products I bought was a tub of lavender body butter. It is thick and as it melts into your skin it makes the whole room smell like lavender. As I showed it to the children and rubbed some into my hands I spoke about the power of Christ's healing touch.

When Christ called his disciples and began his public ministry, healing was a central part of his work. In Mark 1: 40-42 Jesus touches and cures a man of leprosy, in Mark 7:32-35 he lays hands on and cures a man who is deaf and mute, and in Mark 8: 22-25 he restores sight to one who was blind. Jesus travels the countryside healing those who are sick, and preaching God's kingdom. He takes the hand of a girl who has died, calling to her to get up, and she does. (Mark 5:41-42). While Jesus can heal without the gift of touch, as he healed the woman who simply touched his cloak, Mark 5:25-29, it is clear he was generous with his physicality, allowing a broken and sick world to feel the embrace of the God they had seen only previously as a plume of smoke or a pillar of fire.

And so in chapel today we reached out and touched our friends on our left and on our right. We then touched our friends who sat in front of us and behind us. Teresa of Avila told us, " Christ has no body now but yours, No hands, no feet on earth but yours". Our world is still broken. Many of our friends need healing. They need a hand, a hug, a reminder that their faith can make them well.