Jesus's Power of Touch

Everything Jesus touches is made whole. The woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years was healed by so much as taking hold of the “hem of His garment” (Mark 5:28). When Jesus traveled through the land of Gennesaret, the people of the village “brought to Him all who were sick, and begged Him that they mightonly touch the hem of His garment,” and as many as had grabbed hold of it were completely healed (Matthew 14:34-36).

Jesus had felt in His body that “power had gone out of Him” (Mark 5:30); even the fringes of His robes were energized by the healing power of the Holy Spirit. Everything that touched Jesus became powered by the divinity that was embodied in Him. Everyone who knew of Jesus recognized that power, so “little children were brought to Him that He might put His hands on them and pray” and Jesus blessed the little children by laying His hands on them (Matthew 19:13-15). Jesus’s power was universal loving-kindness – that that no matter where it goes it heals, it makes whole, and blesses it.

Jesus had bestowed that power to His disciples before He ascended: He breathed His life-giving breath on them, and that was the transmission of the Holy Spirit (John 20:22). The bed-ridden were made well when the shadow fell on them as Peter was passing by (Acts 5:15). Jesus had even blessed the apostle Paul and had given him of His power to work miracles: “Now God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out of them” (Acts 19:11-12).

None of these objects were “holy relics” per se. These were ordinary, mundane, everyday objects that were energized because of the power and love that had exuded from Jesus. Jesus’s power was so real, that it manifested itself through His clothes; His love was so powerful, that it spread to everything that came into so much as physical contact with Him. That power spread from person to person, from object to object because that powerful energy resonated within Jesus, and flowed out of Him in a very real way. It was the power of the Christ that was real and had resided around Jesus in a very concrete way.