“Heal us, Emmanuel, here we are / We long to feel thy touch / Deep-wounded souls to thee we fly / O Savior hear our cry.”
We sing these words in chapel regularly, and far too often I find my mind wandering and my heart apathetic towards them. Yet recently, they have become a prayer of mine. How I long to feel Jesus’ touch! To be touched by Emmaneul, the healer-king, God with us! And I’m pretty sure that this is a longing that was shared by the poet William Cowper, who wrote the original hymn which has been adapted by Indelible Grace for the version which we sing in chapel.
Cowper was depressed, and sometimes suicidal, often feeling far from God. His was a deep-wounded soul, and he longed with all his heart to be touched by Christ, to be heard by Christ, to be healed by Christ.
This was the same longing of the woman in Luke 8 with a “discharge of blood” that had been going on for twelve years. This was vaginal bleeding, and Luke says “she was dying.” Not only was it killing her, but it also meant that she was cut off from the people of God, ostracized and alone, unable to provide for herself. It meant that she was impure according to Levitical law. She was poor physically, materially, relationally, and spiritually. Yet she knew that if she could but touch Jesus, even just the edge of his garment, she would find healing.
And Jesus, the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, was not made impure by her touch, as others would have been according to Jewish ceremonial law, but rather his purity flowed into her, making her clean. Jesus spoke to her, saying, “daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace.” He called her his child, and sent her forth with his Shalom–all encompassing peace that leads to flourishing.
Thomas, too, longed to touch Jesus. He was a disciple, following Jesus for three years, only to see him crucified. Jesus had promised his disciples that he was going to prepare a place for him, but Thomas had said “Lord, we do not know where you are going? How can we know the way?” (John 14) It was to this that Jesus replied, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Yet Thomas had seen where Jesus was really going. To die. To have nails driven through his hands, pinning him to the wooden cross where he would hang and die, naked, shamed. To have a spear driven through his side to prove that he was truly dead. He, who had claimed to be “the life”!
When the other disciples told Thomas that they had seen Jesus, risen from the dead, Thomas answered “unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” (John 20) Just a few days later, Jesus himself appeared before Thomas, and said, “put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Thomas’ only reply was, “my Lord and my God!”
As a kid, I saw Thomas as an example of doubt, of what we shouldn’t do. “Doubting Thomas” was not on the list of Bible heroes that I was supposed to emulate. Yet Jesus’ reaction to Thomas is not one of condemnation, but rather one of invitation. He invites Thomas to place his finger in the nail mark in his hand, to place his hand in the wound in his side. He invites Thomas to touch him.
I find myself wrestling as Thomas did, struggling to see that my Savior really is risen and reigning, that my God really is there. I long to feel him, and so often I don’t. He feels far off, distant. I wish that I could have had the privilege of reaching out and touching the hem of his garment, as the woman with the discharge of blood did, receiving healing. Or that he could have stood there in front of me, in the same room as me, inviting me to put my finger in his hand, my hand in his side.
I forget that his Spirit dwells within me, and that this is far better. I forget that I am going where I will be able to feel his touch, where I will be in his presence forever, feasting with him at the marriage supper of the Lamb, in which I myself will be his Bride, along with his whole church.
Jesus hung naked on the cross that he may cover us, bringing healing to all who have been violated, who are ashamed, who have found themselves exposed. He was made impure that he might make us pure, as he made the woman with the discharge of blood pure. He was wounded for our transgressions, and by his stripes we are healed. He rose, that we might live, and at last see him in the flesh. As Job proclaimed even as his own body was wasting away, being eaten up by boils: “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God…”(Job 19:25-26)
And our risen and living Redeemer, the Way, the Truth, the Life, invites us when we doubt to place our finger in the nail marks in his hands, and in the spear-wound in his side, and to be made whole. And he says to us, “Daughter [or son], go in peace,” and we go out into the world loving out of the wealth of his love, bringing healing to the physically, materially, relationally, and spiritually poor, hoping in the day that we shall, yet in our flesh, see him.