Love Languages - Physical Touch

Life of the Church

Good morning everyone, it’s good to see you here in person for our worship service.

I have just a few announcements I’d like to mention as we begin our service today.

It’s starting to look like God does not want us to be weeding and mulching and painting around the church, because we had to cancel our church grounds work day again yesterday.

But we’re thankful for the rain and we’re going to try again next Saturday the 21st, starting at 8:30. Please be here for that if you can.

The men’s group will meet tonight at 6:00, and their cookout has been changed to May 22 at 5:00. All men are invited to attend both.

I spoke with Rosemary Sparks this morning. She would like the church to continue praying for Roger. He is starting five days of palliative radiation treatment tomorrow for small-cell lung cancer. He’s doing okay, and Rosemary is doing okay, but please continue praying for Roger and his family.

Also please be in prayer for the Bartley family in the passing of William’s mom, Nancy Bartley. THERE WILL BE A CELEBRATION OF LIFE of Wednesday at 6:00 at Kauffman funeral home in Staunton.

Also, all of us are thankful for those who recently have made a profession of faith in Christ and have come forward to join the church: Nicole, Guinevere, and Stella Sakshaug, and Jesyka and Laco Rowzie.

We’ll be holding a baptism on Sunday the 29th during our morning worship for Nicole, Guinevere, and Stella and Laco. And afterward they’ll all enjoy their first communion, which is exciting.

Jesyka, do you have any announcements this morning?

And Sue, do you have anything this morning?

Opening Prayer

Heavenly Lord, your name is glorious and wonderful. Everyone on earth and heaven sing about your wondrous works. You are the king of all, and we worship you, our Lord. We gather in your presence in the unity of our faith to ask that you bless us. Without your power and grace, we can do nothing. We pray that your glory continues to fill and radiate within our lives so that we can be your ambassadors to the world. Let none of us leave here today empty-handed. Go with us into the world as we serve you. For we ask it in Jesus’s name, Amen.

Sermon

We’re continuing our study of how God uses the 5 love languages to show both his love for us and our value as creations made in his image.

We’ve covered two so far: words of affirmation, and gift giving. Today we’re going to look at one that you might think God doesn’t do a whole lot of—physical touch.

I know quite a few people whose first love language is this one. There are a lot of huggers in my life. And I actually know quite a few people who would say that physical touch is pretty far down on their list of needs.

They don’t like to be touched. Get out of my space. Leave me alone. The funny thing is that I’ve found almost all of these people have a dog or a cat at home, and even if they cringe at the thought of touching another person, they’ll love on that dog or cat like it’s nobody’s business.

Why is that? Because touch is one of our most basic and primal needs. In fact, scientists are discovering that we can’t maintain our health, especially our mental health, without it.

That’s actually what made the pandemic so hard on so many. What were the rules? Wear a mask, wash your hands, and keep a distance.

The problem is that we’re not meant to keep a distance from each other for very long. In fact, scientists have found that being deprived of physical touch results in high levels of anxiety, depression, and immune system disorders. A baby can actually die not just by lack of food, but lack of touch.

On the other hand, more touch — a hug, a hand on the arm, even a handshake — results in lowered anxiety, depression, and stress.

Studies using PET scans have found that when someone holds your hand, your brain actually gets quieter. It’s better if the one holding your hand is a loved one, but it still works even if it’s a stranger.

Amazing, isn’t it? And here’s what I want us to think about today: if we’re created to give and receive physical touch, what does that say about our Creator?

We’re going to look at that through two accounts in the Bible, one in Genesis and the other in Luke, where God touches someone and where someone touches God.

And we’re going to start in the book of Genesis, chapter 32, verses 22-32. Read there with me:

The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and everything else that he had. And Jacob was left alone.

And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him.

Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.”

But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

And he said to him, “What is your name?”

And he said, “Jacob.”

Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.”

Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.”

But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?”

And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.”

The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. Therefore to this day the people of Israel do not eat the sinew of the thigh that is on the hip socket, because he touched the socket of Jacob's hip on the sinew of the thigh.

And this is God’s word.

You won’t find a man quite like Jacob in all the Bible. His story in Genesis paints him as a coward, a thief, a con man, and ultimately a man of God.

We all know the story of Jacob and Esau. Jacob stole his brother Esau’s birthright and Esau vowed revenge, so Jacob ran away to his uncle Laban. That worked out well in some ways but not so great in others.

Then God commanded Jacob to pack up his family and belongings and go back to the land of his birth. Jacob did as he was told. But now there’s a problem. Jacob can’t go back to Laban, because that relationship has been broken. But if he goes back home, he’ll have to face Esau, the brother who vowed to kill him.

So Jacob, being the shrewd guy that he is, sends messengers to Esau to try and fix their broken relationship. You can imagine Jacob’s fear when those messengers return to say that Esau is on his way, and he has an army of four hundred men with him.

That’s where we pick up in verse 22. Jacob is sending his family and everything he has to somewhere safe.

Verse 23 says he sent them across the stream, but that word for stream is better translated as a ravine, or a valley. He’s putting his family on high ground atop one ridge while Esau is coming down from the opposite ridge, leaving Jacob alone in the valley right in between.

Now think about what Jacob’s feeling here. He’s alone. It’s dark. His family is gone and his brother is on the way. He’s thinking about all the terrible things he’s done and he’s looking for a way out of this mess, but there isn’t one. This is it. This is the end.

I bet he’s praying here. I bet Jacob is praying like he’s never prayed before, asking God to show up, to help, to do something.

He’s thinking about the bad things he’s done, all those lies he’s told. And I bet he’s also thinking about all those times God had shown him mercy, shown him guidance.

Jacob is looking back over his life and seeing how God has woven every choice and every stumble into His will, and now he’s crying out for God to show up.

And here God comes. God will always come when we call him. Jacob was discouraged, he was afraid, and yet neither of those destroyed his faith or silenced his prayer, and so God comes.

Verse 24 says it’s “a man,” but it’s not a man. This is God in human form. This is Christ. It’s Christ visiting from heaven before being born into the world centuries and centuries later. Jacob cries out in his grief and fear and brokenness, and it’s Christ who comes.

Now think of Jacob once more. Out there all alone with Esau and an army coming at daybreak, needing a miracle, praying for one, and here one comes. God’s come to help him.

But instead of sitting down to talk, instead of God saying, “Don’t worry now, Jacob, I’ll make everything okay,” what does God do?

He doesn’t offer Jacob rest. Doesn’t offer Jacob wisdom. Instead, he wrestles with Jacob until the breaking of the day.

Verses 24 and 25 are the only times in the entire Bible that the word “wrestle” occurs.

It’s as if God walked up to Jacob in that dark valley and said, “I’m here, Jacob. What will you do with me?”

And in Jacob’s fear, in his doubts and all his worries, in all of his frustrations that have built up over a lifetime, he can do nothing but grapple with God.

Now I want you to look at two things here. I want you to look at how Jacob wrestles with God, and how God wrestles with Jacob. Because those are two very different things.

With Jacob we see that we wrestle in our messiness. Jacob is no saint. He’s done some terrible things in his life.

But God wrestles with him anyway. We don’t need to get ourselves right before we go to God. We don’t need to clean ourselves up, because we can’t. He’s the one who gets us right. He’s the one who cleans us up.

And is there a more powerful picture of a perfect and holy God’s love than showing up to wrestle a filthy, sinful human being?

Actually yes, there is. It’s hat happens next, and that has to do with how God wrestles with Jacob.

We have to get our minds straight on what is actually happening here, because it’s not really what we think. We think of a wrestling match as a physical thing, but the wrestling that’s going on between Jacob and God isn’t just physical. It’s spiritual, too.

This story is mentioned in another book of the Old Testament, the book of Hosea, and in Hosea 12:4 we read of the two weapons Jacob used in his wrestling match with God: prayers, and tears.

He’s not just wrestling, he’s praying. He’s crying out. Jacob is bearing his soul. Jacob’s kicking and punching and clawing and crying and screaming. That’s how Jacob wrestles with God. That’s how we wrestle with God.

So what does God do? He puts out Jacob’s thigh. Now what does that accomplish? First, it makes Jacob realize that this isn’t a man he’s fighting. No man can put out another man’s thigh this easily. That’s something only God could do.

Up until this moment, Jacob’s thinking this is just some guy. Maybe he’s thinking this is a traveler making his way through and trying to rob him, or this is one of Esau’s spies. Now he realizes this is God he’s dealing with.

But watch this now, because this is so important. This is everything in this story. How does God put out Jacob’s hip socket? He doesn’t punch it. Doesn’t kick it. Doesn’t even reach out and jab at it. He touches it.

And how is the only way that even God can touch Jacob’s hip?

The only way this can happen is if God is embracing him.

Jacob’s flailing his fists and kicking his legs, God is hugging him. We assume that since they’re wrestling and Jacob’s hip is thrown out that it’s a violent thing, but it’s not.

God is actually helping Jacob in this match. It’s Jesus here, so we know there won’t be any violence. Jacob thinks he’s fighting, but he’s really being changed by the embrace of Christ, just as we all are.

And that is the picture of God’s love. We punch and kick, he hugs. We scream, he comforts. We want to run away, he holds tight. We think we can stand on our own, he shows us that we can’t. That’s what he shows Jacob with that touch.

Why did God touch Jacob’s thigh, though? Because the thigh is the foundation of a man’s strength. Any athlete will tell you that power originates from the legs.

And the spot where the thigh joins with the hip is the source of any wrestler’s physical force. If the thigh bone is thrown out of joint, you are utterly disabled.

Jacob has just found that this mysterious wrestler has taken all of his strength, all of his power, and he can’t stand alone anymore. He can’t support himself, and so what does he do? He slumps right into the arms of the God he’s wrestling with, and in that moment Jacob learns the one lesson God’s been trying to teach him.

He has to rely on someone more powerful than himself. This is the turning point in this story, right here. Notice what happens. Jacob’s hip has just been broken, but he keeps fighting. He even talks in the very next verse. Do you think you could fight and talk with a broken hip? No way. All you can do is lie down and scream.

Which means that God broke Jacob’s hip while also making sure Jacob wasn’t hurt. God didn’t want Jacob to feel any pain, he just wanted Jacob to learn his life’s lesson.

Jacob can barely walk. He can’t fight at all. He likely couldn’t get the best of Esau in a fight even before this, but now he can’t even run away from Esau.

He’s defeated, and he’s broken, and he’s right where God wants him to be, because now Jacob can’t let go. Jacob’s now wrestling with God because he wants more of God, and now he’s the one holding on tight.

One more point to make before we move on. If you look back in scripture before this wrestling match, you’ll find something interesting.

In Genesis 28, Jacob has a dream of a ladder reaching to heaven, and God stood above the ladder and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac.”

In chapter 31 Jacob is talking to Laban and says, “If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac...”

In chapter 32 verse 9, just before God comes into that valley to meet Jacob, Jacob prays to God and says, “Oh God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac...”

In all of those verses, God is the father of Abraham. In all of them, God is the father of Isaac. But nowhere in the Bible does it say that God is the God of Jacob until after they wrestled. Until after God touched Jacob — not out of anger, not out of punishment, but out of love.

Now let’s move to the New Testament. Turn with me to the gospel of Luke, chapter 8. We’ll be reading verses 40-48.

This is kind of the opposite of what we just looked at with Jacob — not God touching someone, but someone touching God. And that someone is a woman who according to the Jewish laws shouldn’t even be out of her home. Read along with me. Luke 8, verses 40-48:

Now when Jesus returned, the crowd welcomed him, for they were all waiting for him. And there came a man named Jairus, who was a ruler of the synagogue. And falling at Jesus' feet, he implored him to come to his house, for he had an only daughter, about twelve years of age, and she was dying.

As Jesus went, the people pressed around him. And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and though she had spent all her living on physicians, she could not be healed by anyone.

She came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment, and immediately her discharge of blood ceased.

And Jesus said, “Who was it that touched me?”

When all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the crowds surround you and are pressing in on you!”

But Jesus said, “Someone touched me, for I perceive that power has gone out from me.”

And when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling, and falling down before him declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him, and how she had been immediately healed.

And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.”

And this is God’s word.

Jesus’s ministry at this point is in full swing. He and his disciples have just returned to Galilee, and verse 40 says that the crowd welcomed him and the people were all waiting for him.

But there’s one man in particular who’s waiting to see Jesus. His name is Jairus, and he’s an important man. He’s a respected man. And he has one of the top jobs in the city — he’s a ruler of the synagogue.

The people of Galilee might not understand that Jesus is the Messiah, but they know without a doubt that he’s special. He’s a rabbi, a teacher, and he’s a healer. And right now, Jairus needs a healer. So he runs to Jesus, and what does Jairus do in verse 41? He falls at Jesus’s feet.

The power of this story is all in the things that aren’t said. Right here is one of those things, because never in Jewish culture did a grown man do something like this. Not the poorest peasant, and certainly not someone of stature like Jairus.

Because you had to act right. You had to carry yourself like a man. That means when you were in public, you didn’t show a lot of emotion, and you would never run or appear to be in a hurry.

But Jairus is desperate. He’s saying, “I don’t care how I’m supposed to act, I just need this man’s help.”

And why does he need Jesus’s help?Because Jairus has a 12-year-old daughter at home, and she’s dying.

Jesus listens to Jairus’s plea, and he agrees to go help this little girl. The crowd follows him, pressing in closer and closer. They’re excited, talking to each other. Jesus is going to perform another miracle, and they’re all going to witness it. And hidden in this crowd, we see in verse 43, is a woman.

Now, I want to talk about this woman. What’s wrong with her might be a little uncomfortable to talk about, but we’re going to talk about it anyway.

Verse 43 says she’s had a discharge of blood for twelve years. This woman has been menstruating for twelve years without stopping.

We also see in verse 43 that there is no cure for her condition. She’s spent all the money she has on doctors, trying one treatment and one cure after another, and she’s no better.

So, right here in verse 43, we can say six things about this woman:

First, she’s hopeless — the doctors can offer her no help at all.

Second, she’s poor — she’s spent all her money trying to find a cure for her illness.

Third, obviously she’s in constant pain. Constantly tired.

Fourth, because of the nature of her illness, obviously this woman can’t have children. And as we’ve seen before with both Hannah and Sara, in that culture, a woman who could not have children was worthless.

Fifth, and this might be worst of all — because of this woman’s condition, she was considered ceremonially unclean.

She was not allowed to go to public worship. She could not offer a sacrifice for her sins and so she couldn’t be forgiven, which meant to her that her sins just kept piling up higher and higher.

This woman shouldn’t even be in that crowd. If the people pushing in and around Jesus right then would have realized who she was, there would have been a panic. She very well could have been killed.

Because she was unclean. And since she was unclean, the law said she was not allowed to touch anyone, and no one was allowed to touch her.

For twelve years, no one had touched this woman. No one had hugged her. No one had comforted her. No one so much as held her hand to pray for her. She was completely cut off, completely alone.

We’ve already talked about how a lack of physical touch affects us physically and mentally. This woman hasn’t had any of that for twelve years. According to the law, to the rules, she’s rejected by God. Now add to that a sickness that doctors can’t cure. I’ll tell you this, it’s hard to look through the Bible and find someone in worse shape than this. Lower than this. Not even Job.

Which brings to the sixth and last thing we know about her from verse 43: she has no name. She is so alone, so filthy, so insignificant in everyone’s eyes, that this woman is not even given a name.

You see what Luke is doing with the way he writes this passage. It’s brilliant. He’s setting up a contrast between this woman and Jairus, isn’t he?

Jairus has a daughter who is 12 years old and sick. This woman has been sick for 12 years.

He’s the ruler of the synagogue. She isn’t even allowed in the synagogue.

He has a name everybody knows. She’s not even given a name.

He’s respected. She’s rejected.

But they both share one important belief: they know Jesus can help. They go about it in two different ways though, don’t they?

Jairus runs right to Jesus. He falls down right in front of the Lord. And Jairus can do that because he thinks he’s a good man. A righteous man. He follows all the rules and does everything right, so he has no misgivings at all with looking Jesus right in the eye and begging for help.

But this woman? She thinks she’s nothing. That’s all she’s been told for 12 years. She’s disgusting. She’s worthless. God can’t love her.

But even though she thinks God will never accept her, she believes God can still help her. That’s why she threads her way through the people until she can get right behind Jesus, and in verse 44, she touches the fringe of his garment. And in that very moment, her bleeding stops.

Now, a few things here.

First, what’s this woman trying to do? She’s trying to get God’s blessing without getting God, isn’t she?

But we can understand why. She knows she’s unclean. She’s unworthy to even be in that crowd, much less to look Jesus in the eye, so forget about actually asking him for help. Because she’s dirty. And most of all, she’s ashamed of who she is. Of who she’s become.

When Luke says the woman touched the fringe of Jesus’s garment, he’s not talking about the edge. He’s talking about the tassels that hung down from Jesus’s robe called zizzots, which represented the law.

The Greek word for “touched” actually means “clutched”. She didn’t just brush her hand along the edge of Jesus’s clothing, she clutched it. She grabbed hold of Jesus and was healed.

But right after that moment of joy comes a moment of fear. Because you can’t have God’s blessing without God himself. That’s why Jesus stops and says, “Who touched me?”

Does Jesus know who touched him? Yes, of course he does. So what’s he doing? He’s giving this woman the opportunity to come forward. He’s giving her a chance to get the thing that’s even better than the healing, and that’s the God who provided the healing.

By the way, Peter’s response here is exactly why he’s my favorite disciple. Jesus asks who touched him. Look at what Peter answers in verse 45: “Master, the crowds surround you and are pressing in on you!”

And you can imagine Jesus thinking, “Really, Peter? I had no idea there’s a crowd around me. Thank you for that wonderful insight. What could I do without you?”

A lot of times in the Gospels, you get the impression that Jesus is doing his work not because of his disciples, but in spite of them. Which should give us a lot of comfort considering how many ridiculous things we do and say thinking they’re in his will.

Jesus doesn’t say that, of course. But he does say in verse 46 that, yes, there might be a lot of people touching him at the moment, but this touch was different. And this poor woman knows she can’t hide anymore. She’s hidden herself away for twelve years, but that time is over.

So she comes to him in verse 47. She has no choice anymore. She’s thankful but scared. Healed but still deeply scarred. She comes to Jesus trembling.

She falls down before him and tells everyone why she had touched him — and by the way, how embarrassing would something like that be? But she had to say it, otherwise she couldn’t say that this man, this Jesus, had healed her.

Kneeling before Christ, what’s this woman wondering? “Is he going to reject me like everyone else has? Is he going to be angry? Will I be cast out? Because I’m not supposed to be here, and he knows that.”

Is that Jesus? Is the Jesus you know the kind of Jesus who would do something like that? You better think about that question, because it’s important. Because the Jesus of the Bible is the one who answers to you the same as he answers this woman in verse 48: “Your faith has made you well; go in peace.”

Shocking, isn’t it? Because what’s happened here? This unclean woman has just touched God. She’s been healed. But what’s happened to Jesus? He’s still the same, isn’t he? Jesus is still clean.

Usually when an unclean thing touches something clean, the clean thing becomes unclean. Right?

If I’m sick and I sneeze on you and then you get sick, what do you say? “You gave me your cold.” That doesn’t mean I don’t have my cold anymore. It means that now we’re both sick. Because when the unclean touches the clean, the clean thing becomes unclean.

But when you take your sin to Jesus, it’s the opposite that happens. The unclean thing becomes clean. That’s the heart of the gospel. That’s what Christianity is all about. On the cross, Christ took on all of our uncleanliness. He remained clean, and so turned us clean.

That’s the Gospel. The Gospel says that we’re all more wicked than we can ever realize, but more loved and accepted than we could ever dream. Sinners and outcasts are forgiven and made family, and how do we know that? Because of what Jesus calls this woman in verse 48 — Daughter.

He calls her Daughter.

This is the only person Jesus ever calls by that name. Did you know that? It’s a name that expresses the most intimate, tender relationship possible. In fact, translate that word from the Greek, you could read that as Jesus calling her something like, “Sweetheart.”

The girl nobody wanted is adopted by the Heavenly Father. The girl no one touched is embraced by the strongest and most tender arms in the universe.

Here’s Jairus—and let’s not forget him, poor Jairus still has a daughter about to die, but Jesus has stopped everything to talk to this unclean, filthy woman. Who is Jairus right now? He’s not a ruler in the synagogue right now, is he? All Jairus has become is a father pleading for his daughter’s life before Jesus.

This woman has no father, so Jesus becomes her father. It’s maybe the most profound moment in the Gospels, right there in verse 48. Because it answers the most fundamental question of religion: what’s it like to lay all of your shame and ugliness, all of your sin, before a holy God? Terrifying. Shameful.

But what happens? God takes you in his arms, he looks you in the eyes, and he says, “I forgive you, Sweetheart, and I love you.”

Both of these people we’ve met today, Jacob and this sick woman, have something important in common. Both literally touched God. Both came away from their encounter with God completely changed. But more than that, both of them received new names.

From the night Jacob wrestled with God to the end of his life, he was called Israel, which means “God prevails.” It was as if God was telling him, “You won’t be known any longer as the cheater, as the thief. Your new name will mean God prevails, because when you wrestle with me and depend on yourself, you’re no match. But when you depend on me, you can never lose.”

This unclean and unwanted and unnamed woman who came to Jesus left washed and loved and with a new name: “Daughter.”

And what comes with a new name? A new identity. That’s what you get when you touch him.

A new identity that outweighs any other identity put upon you. A new identity that says you are not what others have said you are. You are not what others have done to you. You are not the stories you tell yourself, or the failures you’ve experienced. You are what Jesus has declared.

And if you’re ready for that new name today, I invite you up here as we sing our closing hymn.

Let’s pray:

Father we’re so thankful that even though you are a holy God, completely set apart, completely infinite and all-knowing, completely beyond us, you are still a God we can touch, and a God who touches us. A God who loves us. A God who forgives us. A God who wants nothing but the best for us. We forget that, Father. We’re so focused on the stories that we tell ourselves about our own failures and shortcomings, we’re so intent on hearing the things that other people say about us, that your voice gets drowned out, and that voice is the most important one of all. Thank you for the new name you give us. Thank you for the new identity you put upon us. Thank you for being our father, our savior, and our friend. For it’s in Jesus’s name we ask it, Amen.

Benediction

Father we rejoice in your greatness and power, your gentleness and love, your mercy and justice. Enable us by your Spirit to honour you in our thoughts, and words and actions, and to serve you in every aspect of our lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.