...and just so that you all understand that I am not off my rocker, I didn’t have a religious experience involving a piece of moldy bread, or a vision from above telling me to raise a holy jihad. I haven’t lost my marbles... yet.
I saw Jesus tonight at the Wal-Mart in Lynwood, Washington. He was shopping for a Spiderman winter hat. My life will never be the same.
I went in to buy an accessory component to the big family gift that Candace and I bought for the kids. I figured that 10:15 at night would be a safe time to do my shopping quick; to get in and get out while the shelves were being stocked and the lines would be short. Boy was I wrong. The place was absolute pandemonium: People were arguing over who was next in line, tensions were high and tempers were short.
Because I only had one item to purchase, I slid into the ten items or less line that was already getting packed-out behind me. I was #3 in line, and considered myself fortunate that the wait would not be so bad. Behind me and around me, the bustle and grumble was continuing, and I was looking forward to getting out of the store and heading home. I’m not doing this again, I told myself.
Then we hit a snag. The guy in front of me started to become visibly agitated with the goings on in our line, so I peered over him on my tip-toes to see what might be the matter. Our cashier was taking a customer to task for bringing too many items into the ten items or less line. He had eleven. You would have thought this man was guilty of a capital offense by the way the cashier was going off on him. She spent more time chastising him for his error than she would have if she had just rung up the item and collected his money.
And since this is the season of “goodwill toward men”, the sentiments of those in line behind me echoed those of the cashier. Everybody went off on this guy. At one point, the man in front of me re-opened the whole discussion (and stopped the process of check-out) by berating the man again. The cashier, encouraged by Customer-In-Line #2, halted the checkout process to continue chewing out Mr. Eleven Items.
I told myself to stay out of this. I’m headstrong enough as it is, and I don’t need to get directly involved. I am not embellishing here: This was one of the closest times I have come to a situation of all-out mob rule, aside from my time working as a bouncer in a bar in T.C., and I found myself standing in the center of ground zero. Reading the crowd, I determined they only needed any semblance of an excuse to go for blood.... So, I bit my tongue.
It was then that Mr. Eleven Items turned to the crowd, and in a soft voice filled with sincerity, apologized to the crowd for his error. His voice was gentle, and was thick with the accent of India or Pakistan. He was truly sorry, and asked forgiveness. This only fueled the flames, and the crowd became more unruly.
That’s when I saw Jesus....
He couldn’t have been more than 8 years-old in age. He and his mom were trying to decide which hat they should buy; the blue one, or the Spiderman one that obviously was going to cost more. He and his mother came up to Mr. Eleven Items to hand him the hat so he could make the purchase.... the one more item that would have turned the crowd loose, and the sale had already been made complete.
Man, woman and child stood there guilty of buying too many pairs of boys underwear and pajamas in the ten items or less aisle. The crowd was poised, the man looked visibly afraid, and the little boy was truly beautiful in his joyful innocence... Spiderman hat in hand.
My heart actually began to beat faster...
I am guessing from the tilaka the woman had, and from the intricate henna painting on her hands, that she and her husband were not Christians. I would deduce that the little boy was not as well. So how did I see Jesus?
The Gospel of Luke tells us...
“He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.”
~Luke 2:5-7
I saw Jesus when I saw how this crowd had no room for these people in the 10-items only line at Wal-wart. They didn’t belong, so the crowd wanted them to move along, get out, be gone... GET LOST!
I find this incredible. Since moving to the Seattle metropolitan area about 6 years ago, my family and I have been immersed in cultural diversity from day one. Not a single day goes by... not a single one... that I do not hear someone speaking Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, French, Spanish, German, Italian, or any other dialect of so many different languages. This area is a melting pot where violent crime is a rarity. To see the display I was witnessing in Wal-Mart was even more shocking to me because, well... it is so out of the ordinary here.
The Prophet Isaiah says...
“He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”
~Isaiah 53:2-3
I saw Jesus when I saw the hatred and malice directed toward this family, and I had a glimpse of the dark side of the human spirit that was directed at Jesus as he went to the cross at Calvary.
Once, I posed the following question on my question on my FaceBook wall: “What do you get when you cross a german shepherd with a chihuahua?” The answers were creative and often funny, but they all illustrated the point that I wished to make that deep down inside of each of us, we are wired for racism.
The real answer is: You get a dog. The same goes for a child born of any ethnic combination or genetic mutation or abnormality: You get a human.
In Psalm 139, David says...
“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”
~Psalm 139:13-16
The Prophet Samuel told us...
“But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”
~1 Samuel 16:7
I saw Jesus and his compassion when I looked into the eyes of the Mr. Eleven Items and saw the look of fear he had as he stood as a stranger in a strange land, surrounded by white America... His wife, barely able to speak english and his son seeing first-hand the darker side of growing up in the land of equality and equal opportunity for all.
I saw Jesus in this persecuted family as I understood the persecution of another family 2000 years ago, who fled their homeland to protect the life of their newborn son from the swords of Herod’s hatchet men.
Mr.Eleven Items bravely walked his wife and child to the back of the enormous line to purchase the Spiderman hat for little “Jesus”, while the crowd enveloped them and growled and eyed them with malice.
Every fiber of my being wanted to scream out and lecture those around me for their ignorance and intolerance.... but how would that make me any different from them?
I had to do something.
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It is at this point of the story that I want to make sure that I am clear on a few things:
Jesus is an actual person, born over 2000 years ago as the Bible tells us in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.
Jesus was fully God, born in the flesh to a virgin girl named Mary, to make His dwelling place among men, to show the way to God the Father in Heaven, as the Gospels of John and Mark tell us.
Jesus willingly went to and died on a Roman cross to pay for the individual sins of each and every one of us. After three days in the tomb, He rose again, ascended into Heaven, as all four Gospels tell us.
He is coming back, as the rest of the New Testament writers affirm.
Jesus is real.
So, how do I reconcile these last few points with my earlier statement of seeing Jesus in Wal-Mart? Because I believe Jesus, when he said to the crowds in the Gospel of Matthew:
“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’
~Matthew 25:34-40
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“Excuse me,” I said to Mr. Eleven Items.
The crowd of 50-70 or so people literally became silent. It was eerie. Two lines of people and two cashiers literally froze and turned to look at me. Mr. Eleven Items slowly turned to face me, the look of dread already on his face before he looked me in the eye. A few people chuckled. I think they were expecting a different response from me.
“Are you buying that hat?” I asked. He nodded the affirmative. “I have one item that I am purchasing. Bring it to me.”
Slowly, he guided his wife and his son back to their unguarded cart and before handing me the hat, explained, “I have no cash.”
“That’s all right,” I replied. He handed me the hat, and I handed it to the cashier.
“What the hell are you doing,” the cashier asked me.
“I’m buying a Spiderman hat,” I said. “Is there a problem?”
With the guy in line in front of me already on his way, I purchased my two items and walked over to Jesus. I went down on one knee so we could look each other in the eye. I held the opened the bag out to him and said, “Here you go, my man!”
He plunged his hand in and lifted out his prize. He gave it a hug before wrapping his arms around his mother’s leg. I stood up and offered my hand to Mr. Eleven Items. He shook it with reluctance --or perhaps it was caution-- before saying, “You did not need to do that.”
“I know,” I said, completely at a loss for words. “Goodbye.”
I went out to the car and wept silently as I drove home. All I could think about was how I, too, at some point in my life, have been one of the mob that I had just left behind. How many times have I neglected my neighbor or abused the love of my Savior?
I have no righteousness of my own. What I have has been given to me at a cost I could never pay. It is the real gift that keeps on giving. It requires nothing, but seeks a response. Grace is, by definition, an unmerited gift.
And, as a final reminder from another who bent his knee to the One and Only Savior:
“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord, not men.”
~Colossians 3:23
Merry Christmas, all.
