Susandoodles

Today is Christmas Eve and the fourth Sunday in Advent.  Not much time between today and tomorrow, Christmas Day, which ends Advent, therefore, we finish Matt Rawle’s Experiencing Christmas: Christ in the Sights and Sounds of Advent.

We have five senses by which we experience life:  sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch.  When I opened this devotional, I wondered why the sense of smell was excluded.  Fortunately, Rawle explains this in the afterward, so I want to clear up the questions before reviewing the sense of touch.

Rawle explained that he became aware that people smell things differently.  The sense of smell is not as objective as the other four senses are so logic of the analogy gets ‘messy’.  I understand that because I remember one of my college roommates liked one scent, and it literally made my headache and could make me nauseous.  This lead Rawle to exclude the sense of smell in how we experience Christmas.

But he certainly did not skip the sense of touch.  Certainly the basic needs of all individuals are food, clothing and shelter, but the value of human touch can be a major key to the human experience.

Rawle makes these primary points:

• We cannot live without touch.  It would be impossible.  We must be able to feel the world around us.  (He mentions about teaching toddlers not to touch a hot stove.)
• Most profound of all the senses God assumes is the sense of touch.  To know what it is like to be full and what it is like to be empty.  The pleasure of that first morning stretch, the pain of a skinned, knee, and the healing of a mother’s embrace.
• There’s a lesson hidden in the touches offered to Jesus.  He was fully embraced at his infancy.  He was fully embraced at his death.  Luke seems to communicate that to fully embrace Christ, we are to take hold of the entire story.  (He references several experiences of touch referenced in Luke, such as the woman who touched his cloak and then when Joseph took Jesus’ body down from the cross.))
• All of creation, with intent or accident, recognizes that when God put on flesh, everything changed.
• Jesus is fully human and fully divine, without division, embodied with a sense of touch that will know what it means to be held, to be cared for, and also to know pain and sorrow.

In reading through the chapter, Rawle provides very real examples of how important touch is in our world.  I grew up in a family in which the hugs were few and far between.  Greetings were verbal only.  My family, including grandparents. Aunts, uncles and cousins, lived in close proximity, and we kids grew up together.  Touch just was not part of our world.

But as I have grown in my faith and in my experiences with others, I have come to know that touch is so very important.  The touch becomes the bond between two people.  It is communication.  It is love in service between two people.  

Certainly as we step into Christmas Day and remember Jesus’ birthday, we know how critical the touch of a mother is for the baby.  Loving touch seems a natural response at a birth, but some cultures do not include an emphasis on positive touch experiences.  Instead so much emphasis is placed on inappropriate touch and managing it.

After experiencing primary care of my mother and her cancer, then my father and his encephalitis-causing brain damage, I have learned touch is so important even during these critical times.  I am learning that touch is a ministry.

As we consider the touch ministry of Jesus, consider your own ministry.  Beginning with Christmas Day, and on into the new year, consider the value of touch in your relationships and in your ministry.  Keep it appropriate, but do not shy away from sharing a hug, holding the hand, and a pat on the shoulder or arm.  Listen with intention but listen with a gentle touch if you feel it helps communicate God’s love.

Merry Christmas and as we begin a new year, remember that we were gifted by five senses to use as we experience our earthly journey.  Advent was a time to learn to use the senses, 2024 will be the year to put it into practice.