Sacred...in the flesh

I think I just met Jesus again.

I had just sat down across from one of our youth in my usual meeting space (a.k.a. Tim Horton’s) when a young man drove his chair over to our table.  He was probably in his early 20’s with a patchy but long beard.  His shoulder length hair fell into his face as his head tilted to one side.  His hands were curled. 

“Can you help me?”  he said.  He extended his hand towards me to reveal a black smudge on the crease where his thumb met his palm.  “I don’t know if its WD40 but I’d want to get it off.”  Then he asked me to take him to the bathroom.

Its not everyday someone asks me to take them to wash their hand, and I was a bit surprised. The restaurant had power assist doors at the main entrance, but not for the washrooms.

“Would you help me?” he had asked.

“Sure!” I said and I followed his lead. Inside I was struck again at how intimate this space is.  In a guy’s bathroom there are certain rules that apply and these usually include no eye contact and no talking. But he looked right into my eyes as he repeated himself, “I think its WD40. I got it getting off the van.”

He turned the water on, and with his other arm fixed to his side, moved the water around the smudge with his fingers.  “Can I put some soap on that for you?”  I asked.  He agreed.

Until now my mind had been in ten different places.  What example am I setting for the teenager I was there to meet with?  What does Leading with Care tell me to be careful of?  Should I lead this guy, or follow him?  Is my body language sending an affirming message?

All of that disappeared as I moved the soap around the hand of this stranger. The smudge first thinned, then disappeared.  I had a such keen sense of how “other,” holy, sacred this interchange was.

We chatted during the washing, and again afterwards. It was only after we said goodbye that I realized I didn’t even know his name.

The whole experience has haunted me.  There’s a passage in Matthew where Jesus says, “If you have done it unto the least of these, you have done it unto me.”  I’ve referred to that in countless conversations and sermons, but this was the first time I felt like I had met Jesus in the flesh.  This young man was authentic and vulnerable.  He moved past fears and turned his inability-to-move into an ability-to-connect. 

What could life be like if I followed this man’s example?  What if I simply asked for help when I needed it, and didn’t let my fears form barriers between me and another?   Perhaps his light would break through for them, and they might feel Jesus in the flesh too.