Touch

Touch someone, so that others may be touched. It’s a ripple, no matter how small or how slow it moves across the oceans of time, that will touch another. Often a touch heals, but not as it did those millennia ago:

For she said within herself, If I may but touch his garment, I shall be whole. (Matthew 9:21 KJV)

And besought him that they might only touch the hem of his garment: and as many as touched were made perfectly whole. (Matthew 14:36 KJV)

And the whole multitude sought to touch him: for there went virtue out of him, and healed them all. (Luke 6:19 KJV)

Thirty years ago AT&T paid N. W. Ayer for the advertising slogan “Reach Out and Touch Someone.” It was used again in 1984 and 2003 – almost a timeless communication ad, for the concept was two thousand years old.

Each time we do reach out, we leave an impact on the person we touch. Only once did Christ stop and acknowledge such a touch, and where it was made:

And Jesus, immediately knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him, turned him about in the press, and said, Who touched my clothes? (Mark 5:30 KJV)

In that crowd of people, surely His clothes came in contact with many others, yet there was one touch that was different.

We experience such touches between lives, memorable ones though they begin as dozens of others we experience each day. One will stand out. One goes on to become a friendship. One makes a difference in our lives, or in the life we touch.

Do we have virtue to share? Can someone touch our lives and perceive excellence in morals, good habits, righteousness?

Good, or bad, there are ripples across lives when we touch. We cannot choose where the ripples go, but we do have a choice about what they say:

I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live: (Deuteronomy 30:19 KJV)