Where's Jesus?

I remember reading about a nursing student who was taking her final exam for becoming a nurse. One of the questions on her final exam was, “What is the name of the woman who cleans the floors in this building where you have taken your classes?” The lady was upset by the question. It seemed to have nothing to do with her chosen profession. She went up to her professor and asked, “Is this a real question?”

“Oh yes,” He replied. “You will meet many people in your profession. People with real needs and who serve selflessly. You need to learn to call them by name, for they are important too.”

Jesus said this in Mathew 25:40, “What you have done unto the least of these you have done unto me.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes: “With that we are faced with the shocking reality: Jesus stand at the door and knocks, in complete reality. He asks you for help in the form of a beggar, in the form of a ruined human in torn clothing. He confronts you in every person that you meet. Christ walks on the earth as your neighbor as long as there are people…Christ stand at the door. He lives in the form of the person in our midst. Will you keep the door locked or open it?” (From: A Year with Dietrich Bonhoeffer; page 382)

Christmas is a time when we are confronted with the reality of Jesus being here in our midst. That is what Immanuel means: “God with us.” Those who look for Jesus want to see him in the miraculous and the supernatural. Too often they miss him in the plain and ordinary. For that is where he appears the most. In Hebrews 13:2 we are told: “Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it.” NIV

Jesus is there in that harried and worried single mother who cuts you off on her way home to see her children after a hard day at work. Jesus is there in that co-worker who has an attitude that grates on your nerves. Jesus is there in that man who stands on the corner with the sign that reads: “Will work for food.” Jesus is there in that traffic snarl that will make you and hour and a half late for work.

A pastor writes: “On an icy winter night two weeks before Christmas, I was at O’Hare Airport. All flights had been canceled due to fog and freezing rain. The airport terminal was in bedlam. Thousands of people were clustered at ticket counters demanding a projected departure time, others were wrapped in stoic silence. Children were crying, the public address system was blaring and the defeated were bellying up to the bar. I was tense and apprehensive. I had to get to Texas to start a retreat the next day. How can the Gospel be preached in Dallas if the weather won’t shape up in Chicago?

Across from the plastic chair I had slumped in was a middle-aged black woman with a child cradled in her arms. She was laughing. The world was collapsing, thousands were stranded, O’Hare was a shrieking snake pit and she was laughing! Irritated but intrigued, I started watching her. She was rubbing her fingers across the child’s lips, and he was blowing mightily: ‘Brhh, Brhh, Brhh.”

She looked up and saw me staring. ‘Ma’am,’ I said, ‘every other person here tonight is rattled and miserable. Would you mind telling me why you’re so happy?’

‘Sho’,’ she said, ‘Christmas is coming and dat baby Jesus—he make me laugh.’” (Brannan Manning, Lion and Lamb, pages 156-157)