Dec 31, 2007

I May Have Found Jesus

I've been looking for the real Jesus over the past two years. Really looking, for the real one. Not the Americanized one, or the televangelist one, or the Oprah Winfrey one. But the real one. First of all, I think He's much more complex than I realized. Second, I don't think I'll ever find all of Him until I get to heaven. But for now, I think I found a piece of Him.

On Christmas Eve, my husband, three children and I went with friends to feed and clothe the homeless. We drove behind a little truck from Mobile Loaves & Fishes ministry and we stopped near a park where the homeless gather. We handed out fruit, juice, hot dogs, coffee, hot chocolate, clothing and dozens of beautiful handmade winter scarves that women from a local Jewish temple had been making for a year.

And I found Jesus. Nearly every person we cared for, every dirty, broken, lonely, lost, lovely person mentioned Him and asked for prayer. Real prayer. Sincere, honest, shameless requests for God to show up and touch them. They didn't pray for stuff, or success, or wealth, or a new car, or a trip to Aruba. They asked for Him to show up and save them from the cold. To save them from getting beat up again tonight. To touch them and give them wisdom on how to get back on track in their lives. They asked for prayer for their spouses in prison for drug possession. And they were thankful and grateful and rough around the edges. Jesus absolutely loves the broken, the hard, the lonely, the despairing, the foolish, the lost, the hungry, and the cold. I saw him that night, on Christmas Eve in the streets of Austin.

I can't wait to see where I find Him next.

1 comment:

David Cho said...

Thanks for stopping by my blog.

Great post. The passage where Jesus said, "when I was hungry, you fed me, when I was in prison, you visited me..." personified here.

For so long, I was taught aversion to helping the needy because of the "dangers of the social gospel." That is another aspect of my fundamentalist past I am trying to shed, but it's so hard.