A person’s touch
What do we think of when we think of touch? Of hugging a loved one, of caressing a child’s cheek, or of intimacy with a partner? Or do some of us know touch only as something horrid—an act of aggression or invasiveness?
The Bible includes touch in all of its innuendos—compassion, love, friendship, violence, and fear. There is the bleeding woman who risks touching Jesus’ hem with her hand, a forbidden intrusive act that he accepts as an expression of faith. There’s Jesus himself, who touches strangers daily with an empowered authority, tenderness, and lack of fear—[he] “put forth his hand, and touched him” (a leper), and “he touched her hand” (Peter’s mother-in-law) and “touched their eyes” (two blind men).
Judas gives us the contrasting experience, as seen in Caravaggio’s The Taking of Christ. As Judas hugs Jesus, Roman soldiers crowd around in a chaotic, claustrophobic scene. This is perhaps the worst example of touch: an embrace that betrays the meaning of embrace.
