Touch and Feel (Friday Devotional)

And all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came out from him and healed them all.

- Luke 6:19

At age one, my daughter has started taking more of an interest in books, and she’s already found her favorite kind. Not fantasy or science fiction, not mystery or romance—her favorite books are touch-and-feel board books. Books with rubbery surfaces she can run her fingers over, books with braille-like bumps she can feel, and—of course—books that can handle being put in her mouth without getting ruined. We like to say that for Katherine, reading isn’t just something she does with her eyes—it’s a full body experience.

When you look back on the ministry of Jesus, you see that a relationship with him was the same way. People didn’t just listen to the Lord’s words from long distance or read them in a book, they got up close and personal. Tax collectors and Pharisees alike broke bread with Jesus. His disciples slept just a few feet from the Savior. People desperate for healing reached out and touched Jesus.

When the time came for God to usher in His kingdom, Scripture assures us that He did not do so in an impersonal, distant manner. Rather, “the Word became flesh and lived among us.” Jesus lived a physical life, died a literal death, and rose to life in a body people could see and touch. The gospel was not just something people saw or heard, it was a full body experience.

Today we know that Christ has ascended into heaven and that we await his glorious return, but that doesn’t mean the gospel has moved from the physical to the conceptual—while the gospel is something to be believed, it is also something to be lived. People need to read about the sacrificial love of Jesus, but they also need to see Christians getting their hands dirty serving. People need to learn about the fellowship Jesus offers to sinners, but they also need Christians to break bread with them. If the church is the body of Christ, we must not just preach the gospel, but also demonstrate it.

Just as during Jesus’s ministry, the crowds today are reaching out to touch Jesus. They need a gospel that is not just intellectual, a love that is not just spiritual—they need a ministry they can see and hear and feel. When people touched Jesus, they found power—what will they find when they reach out to his followers today?