⁴⁰ At sunset, the people brought to Jesus all who had various kinds of sickness, and laying his hands on each one, he healed them. 
                                                                                                -Luke 4:40
 
The healing events of the past few verses have all happened on the same Sabbath day when travel was restricted. But as soon as the sun went down Sabbath travel regulations were over, and the people wasted no time to bring their sick for healing.
 
And notice how Jesus treats them: he lays his hands on each one. He doesn’t make a blanket declaration of healing over the crowd and heal everyone at once.
 
He touches people. It’s individualized, specialized, attentive, specific.  To Jesus, these are people to be loved, not just problems to be fixed.
 
Very often sickness in the ancient world (depending on what kinds of sickness) led to isolation. Many sick people were quarantined because even though they didn’t understand about germs, they did understand that if a sick person touched a well person, the well person often got their sickness. 
 
At least, that’s how it used to work. Before Jesus.
 
Now, when a sick person touches this One perfect well Person, the perfect well Person’s health flows into the sick person’s sickness and overwhelms it and negates and it and swallows it up.  Purity meets toxicity and the purity wins, not the toxicity. Health meets germs and the germs shrivel up and die.
 
And it happens through individual, beautiful, personalized touch. A touch that healed the body, restored dignity to the soul, communicated love to the heart, and affirmed the good news that this man or this woman is still an image-bearer of the most high God.
 
Where in your life do you need Jesus’s touch? What areas of pain, sickness or brokenness would you like for him to reach out and make contact with his remarkable life?  Spend just a minute asking Jesus to stretch out his hands and touch each area.