One of my favorite things about Jesus was the way He touched people prior to healing them. In Mark 1 He touched a leper and then said, “I will. Be clean.” If it had been me it would have been the other way around. We are very tactile beings and apparently we are not the only creatures God made to be such. In a recent study at the University of California rats were induced to have a stroke. The researchers then tickled the rats’ whiskers and discovered something wonderfully amazing. Neurons that should have died did not. There was no paralysis where there should have been. There still needs to be much follow-up research; however, the implications are extremely hopeful. While it is true, we are not rats and do not respond to things the way they respond, researchers often find correlations. The message is we might have an opportunity to benefit stroke victims by stroking them until we can get them emergency aid.
In Mark 8 Jesus touched the eyes of a blind man. In Matthew 8 He touched Peter’s mother-in-law on her hand and immediately her fever vanished. In Matthew 9 He took a little girl, thought to be dead, by the hand and she got up. Continuing on in the same chapter two blind men were given sight after He touched their eyes. In Revelation 7 John speaks of the redeemed as being a huge uncountable multitude. That is so wonderful. The exclusionists among us are so very wrong. It isn’t going to be just their special little group. It is HUGE and Jesus will touch each person one by one. It will take a while. Perhaps a century or so but I can wait.
Written by Roger Bothwell on June 24, 2011
Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574
Rogerbothwell.org