Handshake from God

By John Pearring

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/013021.cfm
Hebrews 11:1-2, 8-19
Mark 4:35-41

One of the most common human connections, the handshake, is now worriedly going the way of the doffed hat, or folks walking arm in arm. It may disappear altogether like the curtsy. “Not so!” we plead. To no avail. The world has changed in this once common exchange just like many other lovely traditions. We may never get back to the place of innocence, eagerly embracing each other without fear again — even with just our hands.

I believe this current yet constant inconvenience, one that bothers some of us quite a bit, refers to something the scriptures often struggle to remind us. Rely upon hope. You can tell that instilling hope in us is a struggle for God by the repetitive nature of the theme of hope in the scriptures. I believe today's Gospel reading starkly reminds us that God is shocked by our lack of hope.

Then [Jesus] asked them, “Why are you terrified?
Do you not yet have faith?”
(Mark 4:40)

Jesus specifically says faith, not hope. I see something else in front of that statement, though. Our allowance for faith begins with hope, doesn't it? When the wind whipped the sea into a deathly conniption fit, the disciples had lost all hope for survival. They woke Jesus to tell him that they were perishing, and were stunned that he didn't care. We could argue all day about which comes first, hope or faith. They're interwoven. At the least, hope nurtures our faith. Hope strengthens our need to believe. Without hope, we're more prone to anger than love, certainly.

You can read any part of Psalm 16 and you'll hear a constant refrain of hope coming from the writer's heart. We think of faith when reading it, but it's hope that drives the poetic writer's thoughts. He's enamored with God, and no matter what happens to him he remains hopeful.

I keep the LORD always before me;
with him at my right hand, I shall never be shaken.
Therefore my heart is glad, my soul rejoices;
my body also dwells secure ...
(Psalm 16:8-9)

We should respond to the abolition of physical contact with the once common handshake with a hopeful, almost stoic faith like the “ancients,” as Paul called them in the first reading for today. In this little thing which we can no longer do we’re reminded about something greater in our yearning for something taken away from us. Paul spends the entire chapter 11 on a history of faith-filled people, and all of them have the same thing in common. They knew about goodness, and loveliness, and they couch the existence of a good life in a properly arranged, sinless homeland. They were hopeful for that life, even though the likelihood of it ever coming in their lifetime was remote. 

They did not receive what had been promised
but saw it and greeted it from afar
and acknowledged themselves to be strangers and aliens on earth,
for those who speak thus show that they are seeking a homeland.
If they had been thinking of the land from which they had come,
they would have had opportunity to return.
But now they desire a better homeland, a heavenly one.
(Hebrews 11:13-15)

Hopefully, the handshake and the more friendly and vivacious kiss on the cheek wait only in limbo for release back into the wild. Yet, we can imagine that many folks will turn into large groups of Howard Hughes followers. “No touching, please.” We can just stare into each other's eyes. Is it just me who's uncomfortable? 

Fear overcomes hope. It squelches the formation of faith, too. To believe, to have faith, we must have a solid foundation of hope which gets us through fear. In verse six of Paul's soliloquy on faith he frames hope within the context of faith. Hope lifts our hearts to please God, because we're not seeking him in fear, but in expectation. Faith and hope are intertwined.

But without faith it is impossible to please him, for anyone who approaches God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
(Hebrews 11:6)

For the elimination of the handshake we can blame COVID. So, I will. Only the worst of evil's fear-driven infections can provide such a dastardly affliction. The craving for a handshake, then, must wait. We can’t yet seal a deal nor greet a friend with clasped hands. 

In some future time, likely years away, our hands will not have to remain at our sides during a greeting. Until then, both masculine recognition and feminine graciousness, with our hands embraced, must somehow be conveyed with eyes only. I’m not even sure how to practice such a thing. Rather than begin with fear and move into anger, though, I must translate the affliction's presence as an opportunity for hope. So, staring into each other's eyes may well be a grand and hopeful repair to this problem.

A good strong handshake from either a man or a woman says so much that is important and unifying in all human dealings. Its current eradication is hopefully just an abatement, a temporary standoff between humanity and this latest unwelcome virus. When immunity finally overwhelms virility, ending the run of this virus, we’ll grip each other tightly, or lightly, whatever the embrace calls for, and return to the public mark of our civility and common sense. 

Some of us will not go back, which we can credit to a logical fear. No matter. All will be repaired in the next life. God confirms this. Like the Israelites who could have yearned for their memory of a past life in Egypt, we too must move on.

If they had been thinking of the land from which they had come, 
they would have had opportunity to return.
But now they desire a better homeland, a heavenly one.
(Hebrews 11:15)