I am not one of these guys that is especially huggy. I know a few of those guys who are the huggy kind – they hug everybody and anybody. That seems especially true of the NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. Did you notice that he hugged every single draft pick (at least as long as I watched)? I heard Greg Brinda on WKNR comment that he set a record hug of nearly 11 seconds. Is that wrong for a guy? Was he whispering sweet nothings into the guys ear?
One thing that causes people to not hug or touch is the fear of infectious diseases. I made the mistake of watching the movie Contagion. Talk about a freaky kind of a movie. Made you definitely think twice about making any physical contact with anybody. Here is the trailer.
Despite the movie, I can’t imagine life without some form of physical contact. God did not wire us that way. We were wired for relationship and relationship involves touch. In looking in my bible concordance I was struck by the various uses of hands:
- Laying on of hands is a symbol of identification
- Touch not the unclean thing as a warning to stay away from that which corrupts
- Cleansing our hands as a symbol of purity
- Lifting of of holy hands in worship
- Touching Jesus to be healed
- Jesus healing with a touch
My favorite illustration of touch is in the story of the prodigal son. On the son’s return, the father sees his son from a distance and runs to him and embraces him (Luke 15:20). That word conveys the idea of gripping strongly without letting go. It is sometimes used to mean “fall upon” with difficulty to separate. We have all felt a warm embrace that is not surface level. My friend Vince embraces like that – it conveys an unmistakable love. It is the same word used of the Ephesian elders in Acts 20:37 who embraced Paul when they thought they would never see him again.
The absence of touch would much more affect us than the presence of some sickness. We as human beings must have that physical touch. We hear sad stories of Romanian orphans who are so numerous that they never feel the presence of physical touch and are literally starving for it. We are wired for it. It is part of our human expression.
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