“And a leper came to him, imploring him, and kneeling said to him,” If you will, you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, I will; be clean. (Mark 1:40-41)”
I sat in a McDonald’s hours before the governor of California announced a shelter-in-place directive for Santa Clara County residents. An older Asian woman sat 15 feet away from me at a table. I heard her begin to cough. A seated person immediately got up and left. Another customer abruptly turned around.
The Death Of Touch
If the devil wanted to devise a scheme to further create division and alienation, I believe he would concoct a novel illness that would not kill the healthy but rather disproportionately attack the vulnerable, neglected and discriminated against: the foreigner (or those stereotyped to be), the elderly, those with pre-existing medical conditions, and the poor.
But the masterstroke of the enemy’s campaign would be his attack on how people love one another. He would poison touch.
Families and communities express love through physical affection, and Satan would taint this medium. He would alter the most basic of social conventions: the touch greeting — whether a handshake, kiss on the cheek, high-five, or fist bump. The enemy’s campaign would cause a disfiguring or change in the appearance of those infected — either physically or by the wearing of a mask. Communities would be defined by boundaries of who could be touched and who could not. Those who are perceived as diseased will experience the death of touch.
These boundaries of touch would create communities of untouchables. These communities — the elderly, the homeless, the poor — visible and geographic in times past, would be invisible to the public. Their encampments would fall completely off the radar, making it easier to imagine they did not exist. But those untouchables live on in isolation and slowly suffer and die from lack of touch.
Leprosy and The Touch Of Jesus
We shouldn’t be surprised by Satan’s strategy. He has used infectious diseases throughout history to alienate people. Leprosy was one of them. Even in just the past hundred years, little was understood about Hanson’s disease and how it was spread (95% of people are immune), and those infected were isolated into their own communities and viewed as unclean.
The touch of a leper was viewed as the touch of death. Lepers were restricted not only from human contact but even from sight. The disease also disproportionately affected the poor and neglected, meaning the marginalized were ignored and hated even more. In the ancient Near East, it was taught that lepers were sinners who brought the disease upon themselves.
Jesus could and did heal without touch. And yet he intentionally touched those who were most untouchable, as we see when he healed the leper in Mark. His healing touch had a discernible physical effect — to cure the bodily ailment. But the effect of his touch extended far beyond the physical. In touching the untouchable, his hands testified to the worth of the person and were the medium by which supernatural power was conducted.
How To Love Without Touch
Now during this global pandemic, it is clear Christians must exercise wisdom and brotherly love by heeding the public health orders to shelter in place, practice good hygiene, and maintain social distance. But although these directives are temporary, I’m concerned about their residual impact. The body of Christ must be mindful of Satan’s schemes. There are ways to mitigate social distancing but I sense it will be an uphill battle.
Perhaps today is an invitation for the church to tangibly love in non-touch ways. It may look like verbal affection expressed six feet apart or through pixelated glass. Now, a smile and a wave of the hands carry greater significance. “Hello,” “How are you?,” and “I miss you” mean more when handshakes are absent and physical proximity is socially unacceptable.
Another opportunity is through the giving of food. Western culture often overlooks food as a love language but no one today is overlooking the provision of meals. Food occupies such a central place in Asian culture. Providing a meal is a tangible expression of Christ’s body. The love language of cooking and delivering meals is a tremendous comfort and rarely more so than in this season.
Lastly, the value of physical presence cannot be understated, even if it’s from six feet away. Simply showing up outside of your home to your neighbors is a ministry. We need to see each other, not just through glass screens but face to face. The elderly woman next door ministers to me when she is sweeping her sidewalk and weeding her front yard. Children minister to me when they whiz by my house on their bikes. We often take our neighbors for granted and run inside our home after work but now, everyone’s home. Even the act of knocking on someone’s door to borrow a ladder or ask for cooking oil is a ministry to one another.
And yet in spite of these opportunities, I recognize how small and narrow my world is and how weak my efforts are to love others. I am only now getting to know my neighbors after 15-plus years in the neighborhood. I barely know the needs of the five households surrounding our house, much less the rest of the block and poorer adjacent neighborhoods. There’s a senior living community two blocks from our home. I’ve only been there once but before the pandemic, I sped by every day. I pray this hiatus on touch would cause reflection on its importance and how the marginalized suffer most when touch dies. They’re the ones who are most deprived to begin with, and when touch dies, they will die first.
Our Own Leprosy
All sick people need healing, but I wonder if the true illness isn’t from the leper but from within me. Perhaps the enemy’s strategy wasn’t so much to exploit a disease of the body but a disease of the heart. The physical ailment exacerbates a spiritual one: my favoritism for the familiar and preference for the powerful. I only love those who love me in return. I wonder if I’m the poisoned one. I wonder if I’m the leper. I wonder if I need Jesus’ touch as much as the leper. Perhaps I’m the one in need of resurrection.
Am I the one filled with fear? In alienating others, am I the alienated one? How many of my justifications for helping others ring hollow and empty? In surrounding myself and my circle with a hedge of protection, have I walled myself off from the touch of Jesus? If Jesus, in the guise of a leper or an elderly Asian woman, stretched out her hand to me, would I recoil?
I’m drawn to Jesus because he does not discriminate based on status. He does not favor the wealthy, attractive, or popular. He welcomes the exile, sojourner, and outcast. He cares for the widow and the orphan. He stretches his hand out to the leper. I’m drawn to Jesus bec
ause I am not like him and I need his touch to transform me.
After she finished her meal, the older Asian woman stepped near my table to put her trash in the waste receptacle. I had to resist my impulse to recoil from her. Part of me desperately wanted to raise my hoodie over my mouth. I watched as her face drooped with fatigue and sadness. Part of me wanted to give her a hug. I don’t know which part was bigger.