“If you asked me when I was, say, twenty-five, how I could be the presence of Jesus, most of what I would have told you – assuming I understood your question at all – would have centered on ways I could possibly have modeled his strength, purity, or faithfulness. And if you had gone on and said, “Where or how do you think you could see him in other people?” – well, I would have thought you were taking about gibberish, to be honest. But if I had been able to get my head around the question, I would likely have said something about seeing that strength, purity, and faithfulness at work in others.
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However, these stories of my friends reveal a peculiar paradox: I am more likely to have Jesus revealed to me and through me in weakness than in strength, sinfulness than in purity, or doubt than in perfect faithfulness. If I can sum up all these “failures of the spirit,” all these ways in which nothing ever seems to work the way it should – not the people around me, not the sequences of events that I witness or in which I find myself engaged, and certainly not the operation of my own contrary heart – if I can sum up all these things with the single term brokenness, then I come to this astonishing conclusion: Jesus is found in brokenness.
As a Christian, I often wonder where Jesus is working at right now. Granted, at Sunday School we learn that He is omnipresence (everywhere at the same time) and omnipotent (all powerful), I often think, right now as I am typing this blog, where is Jesus is working. Do I see it? Or am i simply living life and passing by without a glance or even acknowledge where Jesus is at.
Even though I ‘know’ God is everywhere at the same time, there is a part of me found it hard to accept that Jesus will be in others. In the physical body of sinners. Speaking to me. Acknowledging me.
For the past few months, I had been conversing with R at downtown. He lives out in the street. And for the winter, R had been living out in the cold. And I do mean cold. There are some days that are -20*C not including wind chill. There was one night where I found him huddling in two sleeping bag.
He chose to live out in the street instead of the shelter for fear of being robbed. R lived on his wheelchair.
When I see him, I can help but see the brokenness of one’s life. From what I gathered, his life is not what most people considered to be great. He once had a wife and a daughter and they are dead from a car accident. He was a carpenter and lost both of his legs. Pretty much his means of earning a buck comes to an end.
But if you spent a few minutes speaking with R, you will see that he is far from broken. Through the times I spent with him, he was never bitter or angry.
He writes poems. Often the poems contain a mix imagery of nature, life and his past. Hearing his poems, I can tell at one point he is angry and mourn for his lost. Maybe the past still haunts him every once in a while. I do not know. He doesn’t show it.
Often, we are told to be Jesus for someone. You have to go share Jesus to someone else. And more ‘often’ than not, Jesus was already there even before I showed up.
It reminded me of Matthew 25:35-36:
35For 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, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
Hanging out with R, I had one agenda. That is to have no agenda. I ain’t there to preach. I ain’t there to fix him and move on. In the book, God in the Alley, Greg Paul talked about being present. He wrote:
“Being among people means being in their midst, not outside. It means being with them, not being over them. It means not looking away from their agony or humiliation, but beholding it, and having the courage to be also wounded by their pain.” (page 30-31)
This is where I see the power of the Gospel. Not by my strength or my knowledge. Which more often than not, being flaunt out to satisfy my pride and ego. Or maybe to hide my twisted and vulnerable self.
My last conversation with R led to talking about Psalm 23, the Parable of the Prodigal Son and God’s Grace. It is through the cold street of Toronto. Between two pillars and underneath a flickering light. The city core where millions are generated everyday, yet none of it reaches to those living on the street, I see Jesus at work.
Not through magnificent fireworks of glory and power. Rather through brokenness in people’s lives. A group of people that society conveniently marginalize nor give compassion upon. And this is where the fight is being fought.
Not with guns or with programs. But with love and compassion. With courage to join and suffer with those that are already suffering. With the voiceless and the lost. The constant battle and desire to bring fourth the Kingdom of God. In a situation void of worldly power or might, the strength in Christ shines brilliantly to those who has eyes to see and desire to follow.
It is only through the brokenness, do I see the strength of Jesus at work.
