Listening for Jesus on the bus

Jesus stands at the door knocking (Rev. 3:20). In total reality, he comes in the form of the beggar, of the dissolute human child in ragged clothes, asking for help. He confronts you in every person that you meet. As long as there are people, Christ will walk the earth as your neighbor, as the one through whom God calls you, speaks to you, makes demands on you. That is the great seriousness and great blessedness of the Advent message. Christ is standing at the door; he lives in the form of a human being among us. Do you want to close the door or open it? – Dietrich Bonhoeffer*

I jumped the 92 bus from Penarth to the Cardiff City Centre. I was lost in my own thoughts when I realized that a man was greeting me. 

He wore a blue winter hat and khaki coat. His face was creased with the heaviness of life. He said hello so I said hello back. And he smiled that I acknowledged him.

Having felt seen, he began to speak to me. He told me he liked poetry. 

“What kind of poetry?”

“My own,” he said confidently.

“You write poetry?” I asked. 

He paused for a long time. “One must be careful with words.” He paused again, thoughtful. “Silence is powerful.” 

After a long silence, he started speaking again. I listened and acknowledged what he said. I don’t remember all we talked about. What I do remember is that, as we spoke, tears began to fall from his eyes. I wasn’t sure at first what the glistening on his face was. But soon enough he had streams down his cheeks. 

In the middle of our conversation, he would stop sometimes and say “thank you.” It took me a couple of times for me to realize what he was thanking me for. “Thank you for listening. People don’t listen.” 

“I’m learning to listen,” I said.

“Why are you always trying to be King of the Hill?” he asked me suddenly. 

“Aren’t we all?”

“No,” he said. “I am the lowest of the low.”

“I am trying to learn to be the lowest of the low,” I replied, “because that is what Jesus asks of us.”

“I love my Lord,” he said. I asked him who his lord is. “Christ is my Lord,” he said. 

“He loves you, too,” I replied. The man reeled back holding his chest as if he had been hit by an arrow. Tears flowed afresh down his face.

“Jesus walked with the poor and the lowly.”

“He still does,” I reassured him. Again, he stopped to let the words hit him, to savor them. More tears and some snot. I gave him a tissue.

“Life hurts,” he said, then, “Life is beautiful.” 

“Yes, that is the tension of life.” This seems to make an impact on him and left him thinking.

What he didn’t know was that I had just left my best friend sleeping in her hospice bed, her body weakened by advanced colon cancer. I am learning all too keenly how the most beautiful thing – true love – hurts so much.

But Jesus walks among us. And that is THE great comfort.

[*] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas, ed. Jana Riess, trans. O. C. Dean Jr., First edition. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 2.