A Human Connection

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“Come close to God, and God will come close to you….”
                                                            ~James 4:8a (NLT)

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I recently visited my two sons living in Ohio. One of the pleasures of visiting my adult children is helping with projects around their homes. So, on this bright and beautiful spring sunny day, I was clearing dead branches out of my son’s flower bed. I was busily snipping away branches when I heard a man’s voice, “May I help you?”
 
I looked up to see my son’s next-door neighbor engaging me in conversation. He was trying to figure out whether or not I belonged on his neighbor’s property. I stood up and heard him ask, “Oh, are you his mom?”
 
“Yes,” I replied. He told me he was just checking on things and then walked toward me with his right hand extended as we introduced ourselves. Such a small gesture. But it has been over a year since COVID-19 restrictions began and people began staying at home and wearing masks and NOT shaking hands with their neighbors.
 
After a few words, he left, and I realized just how pleasant meeting a neighbor and shaking a hand had been. That small human connection was as life-giving as spring itself. My heart swelled with happiness.  We need human connection, even human touch like a handshake with a neighbor.
 
God knows this; it is the way he created us. Jesus knew this; that’s why he came to earth, to give us a God/human connection. Jesus touched people while he lived here and he allowed people to touch him. Jesus held children in his arms; he placed his hands on their heads to bless them. Jesus touched the eyes of blind men, the atrophied arms and legs of the sick, even the coffin of a dead man whose funeral procession Jesus interrupted at Nain, right before he brought the man back to life and returned him to his mother. Jesus was touched in a crowded street by a desperate woman seeking healing. His feet were touched and kissed by a sinful woman who anointed him with her tears of repentance and gratitude for his saving grace and mercy.
 
Those deemed sinners and reprobates by the religious leaders were touched by Jesus. Even those deemed unclean by the Mosaic Law because they had leprosy were touched and healed by God’s Messiah. I imagine that when Jesus spoke to his disciples or invited himself to the home of the crooked tax collector, Zacchaeus, that maybe Jesus put a hand on their shoulders or took them by their arms. Jesus didn’t stand or sit apart from the people he came to teach about his Heavenly Father. He stood close to them; he sat next to them; he touched them.
 
One of my favorite scenes in Scripture is found in John’s gospel. In John 13, the Apostle John describes what happened at the last meal the disciples would share with Jesus before his crucifixion. And the writer describes himself leaning against Jesus. Perhaps John could hear Jesus’ heartbeat as he leaned close, listening to Jesus’ words about what was about to take place.  Jesus never told John to stop leaning on him. He will never tell us that either. Jesus appreciates the power held within a human touch. That’s why he came to be near us.

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