Jesus can do Anything!
It’s a measure of our fallibility and imperfection that we have to be reminded of this. So often, we devolve into a way of thinking that “I’ve got this.” But then we are slapped with the realization, that “I” don’t, that he always does.
This realization is almost always subtle. If He were to address petitions, prayers and priorities on our schedule, it might come like a Thundercrack, overt an obvious. But that would be too easy. The test of our lives is always hard. For those who aren’t blessed with great challenges, I pity them. For it is through great challenges, I believe, that affords us greater opportunity to rely on Him and to trust in Him.
Last weekend, I was graced to recognize one of those subtle signs through discernment He guided me towards.
My dear friend Steve and I were out for our monthly jaunt. Steve, you see, has Alzheimers, and he is slipping more and more. I mention this only for you to pray for Steve and his wife Kacy. We went to the Brattle theatre in Cambridge, MA, to see the “Bugs Bunny Film Festival.” Yes, you heard that right. Boy, oh boy, was it glorious. It opened with “What’s Opera, Doc?” Where Elmer Fudd plays the hunter in pursuit of the “rabbit” and Bugs Bunny plays the part of “Brünhilda” to fool old Elmer, but, I digress.
After the film fest, we went knocking around a few shops where I found something I coveted; a gorgeous glass vase, in the style of some of the glasswork we recently saw in a local museum. It was affordable but not cheap. I asked how late the shop would be open since I was not committed. “Six,” the shop tender said.
Off we went for dinner at the “Dumpling House.” When we left we were approached by a forlorn, disheveled woman who asked “Do you gentlemen know where the church dinner is? I’m looking for the church dinner at Saint Mary’s, I think?” A quick check on my phone told me that it was a 14 minute walk away. She felt that was wrong. She knew it wasn’t far from here. She asked “Does it have a large Jesus on the cross on it’s faćade?” I couldn’t tell. We tried to get more info out of her. She seemed sharp and lucid but there was something a little off.
Others came by and she decided to inquire with them. She said, “I’m an ordained minister, could you help me.” We felt she would sort things out and moved on. But, it didn’t sit right with me. Still, we moved on.
Walking, I checked the time. It was 5:40. Enough time to get back to the shop for that gorgeous artisan vase.
I kept saying to Steve, do you think she’ll be alright? He wasn’t convinced. Neither was I.
Then I looked up across the street. On the side of a brick wall down the street from Harvard Square was a gorgeous 10 foot tall crucifix relief. It was Saint Paul’s, but in the opposite direction from where she was headed! And we were blocks from where we left her.
We hustled back to the car and drove to find her. She was wearing pink slacks, and her coat was awkwardly wrapped around her. Like a cape. She wasn’t easy to miss. There she was, with another fellow, who was looking on his phone trying to help her. We hopped out and convinced him and her that we would take her to Saint Pauls.
The other young man she met, Patrick, and I, got her into my backseat. As we did so the nearby church’s bell rang out. “It’s six o’clock,” she said. “I’m sorry, she said.” Sorry? Sorry for me not getting the vase I coveted? Sorry for the inconvenience? It was all too perfect. “Nothing to be sorry for,” I said. She gave us quite a gift, I thought.
While driving there, she talked much about how she ministers to Harvard students. I believed her. When we got to Saint Pauls, the doors wrecked locked. She said she thinks it was the church in Medford she meant to go to. I asked how would she get there. Well, I’ll walk. Poor thing was practically blind and couldn’t have walked much further. I said let’s get you home. There on the corner on Mount Auburn was her building, one block from Saint Pauls. I helped her in. She said her name was Ellen and she prayed for me. I left her in the vestibule. In my car, I turned to see her sandwiched between the automated door and the wall. Oh no! As I was preparing to jump out and help, the security guy came and sorted things out and in she went. I was actually a bit “Looney Tunes” comical, at that point.
The next morning I read these words during my Bible study: “Whoever shuts his ears to the cry of the poor Will also cry himself and not be heard.” (Provebs: 21:13). Whew. Message received.
At Kids Ministry that same morning, the message was “Jesus can do anything.” Coming full circe, I recounted this story with the 60 or kids we sang to on Sunday.
I had been feeling down lately. Feeling too much that I wasn’t measuring up. Believing, “I got this.” Ellen reminded me, I need Him. We all need Him. Because frankly, we don’t got this.
