I see him lying there. The question that comes to mind "...is he dead?" but i already know the answer. he is not dead, he is drunk...past drunk. We were on our way to Mosaic (the church i have been attending on Saturday nights) He was laying there motionless. We waited at the corner just past the bus stop where he was and the crowd that surrounded him. I don't know if we were waiting for the light to change or for some idea as to what to do about the guy in the middle of the crowd. As the light changed the bus came to the stop and people stepped around and over his motionless body. We turned and helped him on his feet. He couldn't stand on his own. Legs spread like a baby dear trying to stand he stood and looked at me. There was a smile on his face but his eyes were a cry for help.
l looked and i saw him. I saw the lame man by the pool, i saw Zacchaeus, the lost son,the samaritan woman...i saw the people of God's heart all alone and wasting away.
It was just a few seconds after we got him vertical the police came and took over...
We continued on our way.
Where were his buddies to at least take him to some place safe to crash? Was the guy really so hopeless that he didn't even have a friend to watch his back? How many times he probably has been picked up from the same situation and put in jail till he was sober just to do it all again... my thoughts tumbled over themselves.
One of the guys i was walking with to Mosaic said "it must be so difficult to be a police officer picking up the same people again and again and not get a hard heart..."
I started to hum to myself as we walked. "...the Lord is gracious and compassionate slow to anger and quick in Love..."
How easy it is to get a hard heart and walk in the opposite direction of the hurt, the broken, but we find that Jesus went to the center of that pain and had compassion, loved and lived in our midst. It is in the middle of all the darkness that we see the light of God's kingdom here on earth...a hopeful cry for mercy and reconciliation. There is a song we sing here written by Tom Wuest that speaks to this same heart, inviting Jesus to come into the center of us and establish His Kingdom on earth here in the deepest dark. We cry out for not our own selves alone but for the world.
"For the hungry we cry out for your mercy
For the hurting we cry out for your mercy
come Jesus come, come Jesus Come.
May Your kingdom come on earth
as it is in heaven.
Come Lord, come.
For the waring we cry out for your mercy
For the dying we cry out for your mercy."
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