Healing Rays of Righteousness

A few years ago, I heard the story of a group of salesmen who went to a regional sales convention in Chicago.  They had assured their wives that they would be home in plenty of time for Friday night’s dinner.  The meeting adjourned later than they expected, and in their rush through the airport terminal, with tickets and briefcases, one of these salesmen inadvertently kicked over a table which held a display of apples.  Apples were spilled across the terminal floor.  Without stopping or looking back, the salesmen all managed to reach their plane’s gate in time for their nearly missed boarding … ALL BUT ONE.

Almost to the boarding gate, he paused, took a deep breath, and experienced a twinge of compassion for the girl whose apple stand had been overturned.  He told his buddies to go on without him, waved good-bye, told one of them to call his wife when they arrived at their home destination and explain his taking a later flight.  Then he returned to the place where the apples were scattered over the terminal floor.  He was glad he did.

The 16-year-old girl who managed the display of apples was totally blind.  She was softly crying, tears running down her cheeks in frustration, and at the same time helplessly groping for her spilled produce as the crowd swirled about her, no one stopping and no one seeming to care for her plight.

The salesman knelt on the floor with her, gathered up the apples, put them back on the table and helped organize her display.  As he did this, he noticed that many of apples had become battered and bruised; these he set aside in another basket.

When he had finished, he pulled out his wallet and said to the girl, ‘Here, please take this $40 for the damage we did!  Are you okay?’  She nodded through her tears. He continued with, ‘I hope we didn’t spoil your day too badly!’

As the salesman started to walk away, the bewildered blind girl called out to him, ‘Mister…….’ He paused and turned to look back into those blind eyes.  She continued ‘Are you Jesus?‘  He stopped in mid-stride, and he wondered.  Then slowly he made his way to catch the later flight with that question burning and bouncing about in his soul: ‘Are you Jesus?’

Every time I am reminded of this true story, I wonder what I would have done in any similar circumstance.  Would my actions have elicited from the other the question, “Mister, are you Jesus?”  Is my life so deeply rooted in Jesus’ love, that my response would naturally and clearly extend Jesus’ love for others?

If we claim to know and be a disciple of Jesus, should we then not live, walk and act as he would?  The apostle Paul seems to think so.  In verse 9 of Romans 13, Paul says that all the laws of human relations “are summed up in this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Jesus had earlier said that this is the second greatest commandment, which is of the same nature as the first greatest commandment.  “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Mt. 22:37-40).  And in Luke 10:29-37, Jesus redefines “neighbor” in the most inclusive terms possible with his parable of the Good Samaritan, where love even crosses ethnic boundaries.

It seems to me that with unquestionable clarity, we who claim to be disciples of Jesus Christ, are called to love others in ways that look and act just as his love would.  Jesus said, “As I have loved you, so you should love one another” (Jn.13:34).  Jesus speaks three simple and brief words to command his disciples and us to “do to others just as I do to you.”

In being called to speak and act like Jesus in our world, we are also empowered by Jesus’ indwelling Spirit to rightly choose to do so, not because we are commanded to do so, but as a privilege of being yoked with Jesus and His caring love for all humankind.

To be present and sit with another who is full of fear, anxiety, and dread; to listen with empathy and hold their hand is a holy act.  To do these things with compassionate love is to nourish the soul of both the giver and receiver.  To do these things creates an environment of healing.

Mother Teresa was the very presence of Jesus in the lives of so many people and I offer her words as a challenge and prayer for ourselves.

     “Let us pray for each other so that we grow in tender love, that we allow God to love us, and that we allow God to love others through us.

     Where does that showing of love begin?  At home; so let us bring that love to the sick, to the old, to the lonely, to the unwanted.  For people do not hunger only for bread; they hunger for love, they hunger to be somebody to somebody. 

     I will never forget that I once met a man in the street who looked very lonely and miserable.  So I walked right up to him, and I shook his hand.  My hands are always very warm; and he looked up, gave me a beautiful smile, and he said, ‘Oh, it has been such a long, long time since I felt the warmth of a human hand!’  How very wonderful and very beautiful that our simple actions can show love in that way.”                                                                         (Who Is For Life)

Let us each recommit ourselves to a moment-by-moment walk with Jesus in keeping the light and love of Christ glowing brightly in this world of so much darkness.  May our attitudes and behaviors cause others to ask, Are you Jesus?

Prayer Hymn  

“Let the Beauty of Jesus Be Seen in Me”

Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me –

All His wonderful passion and purity!

O Thou Spirit divine,

All my nature re-fine

Till the beauty of Jesus be seen in me.

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“Healing Rays of Righteousness” – July 15, 2020

www.geigler13.wordpress.com

Ray M. Geigley