The Ox

Last week I turned my back on Jesus

   Last week I turned my back on Jesus...twice...in the same day.  Once is bad enough but twice, just three hours apart.  What can you say?  Yeah, I know that claiming to have seen Jesus on a busy street in India is much the same as saying I saw Elvis at the Eketahuna Races.  But trust me... it was Jesus.  Both times. 

   The first was while stuck in one of Chennai’s interminable traffic jams.  40 degrees, A/C on full, going nowhere.  Jesus looked about 83.  Having survived crucifixion, the intervening years had obviously been spent in the sun and dust of India.  The face was almost black, the beard was white.  Stooped posture.  Ragged clothes.  Walking staff.  Ratty sandals.  He looked at me sitting in the back seat of a new Honda.  He wasn’t begging, just eyes that enquired if I was at all interested in connecting. I turned away and continued the conversation with my companions, until Jesus moved on. 

   A few hours later Jesus turned up again.  This time it was the baby Jesus, carried on the hip of the Virgin Mary.  No renaissance style beatific smile here.  More a pitiful pleading.  Tapping on the window.  Begging for food.  Again I turned away.  I could have prayed for the tapping to stop but how stupid a prayer would that have been?  And who to?  Thankfully the lights turned green, Mary’s fingers scraped down the side of the car, and I was gone.  

   I turned my back on Jesus last week.  I’m obviously not a Christian, or Jesus follower, or whatever current term is in vogue. I did wonder how the five Christians I was with coped, as an hour later the waiter cleared away our uneaten leftovers from lunch.  But that doesn’t  make my issue any easier. 

   My problem is that I turned my back on Jesus last week.  I can’t be a Christian, I’m not even a decent human being.