Introduction: Rebecca had been a good wife and mother. She had been a great grandmother even before her great grandchildren had begun to arrive. Faithful, stable and pleasant to be around.
Rebecca had always liked doing best. Sometimes after she had been talking, especially after conversations that were somewhat tense, it left her feeling uncomfortable. Doing things seldom did that.
Rebecca thought about the time right before her husband died that they had had a tiff. Now with him gone she couldn’t go back and fix him a good meal, couldn’t compliment him on something he’d done, even something small like picking up the yard, and she couldn’t ask him for help. No, those days were gone, and their passing left her sad.
Remembering the tiff she couldn’t remember if it was her fault or his. Now it didn’t matter. What good would it do to try to prove if she had been right or wrong now? Alger was gone. No one else would understand. No, and she began to cry inside as she thought about the painful truth that no one would care enough now to try and understand. Rebecca could feel the familiar ugliness of depression creeping around as if it was sneaking a look around a corner to see if it could come into her mind.
No! she could not let it happen! Rebecca promised herself that she would not let it happen. She would not let herself slide into another blue funk that would last until bedtime only to worry it would start again when she woke up. No, she would beat this thing and she would beat it now. But, how? Then the idea hit her like a fresh light on a new day, she would do something!
Then she could almost see that sly monster creeping up beside her, telling her it was no use. She might as well give up and give in and just slouch in her wheelchair until they came to get her for supper.
Rebecca started to cry. Not with the sound of crying, but the tears silently began to fill her eyelids and then one tear dropped onto her cheek and began a slow descent toward her mouth.
Rebecca wiped it away with a shaky hand. “No!” she said to herself, “I will not let it happen again!” But what would Rebecca do? She could no longer kneed bread. It was even too difficult to do some of the simple crafts they provided. And Rebecca knew she could no longer sew quilts. Huh! She couldn’t even sew patches on jeans even if someone did drop off a pair that were on their last legs. And Rebecca could no longer trust herself to hold an infant. Depression would not be hard to embrace. “What did God make me for if I can’t do anything!?” Rebecca sobbed to herself.
Then there was a surprising question in her head. “You can’t do anything?” it seemed to say.
“Well,” thought Rebecca, “maybe saying I can’t do anything is a little strong…but what can I do?”
Rebecca looked up from within herself. The hallway was a little blurry from the tear that had not fallen from one eye. Rebecca wiped it away now and started to get her bearings. The hallway at the nursing home had not changed. There were the familiar glazed cement blocks with the wooden hand rail at what should have been waist height. Now it was shoulder height for her.
Rebecca prayed. “Lord, is there something here you want me to do for you?” Rebecca thought she might be able to cheer someone up. That would be something worth doing! But all she saw were sleepy nursing home residents. These people looked more like they didn’t want to be bothered than cheered up. And they could very well see her as a bother when she had so little life as she had left in her. Even the ones being pushed to and from their rooms, or to and from wherever they were supposed to be going, even they were sleepy on this warm afternoon. Even if they looked busy, they weren’t. They may have been in motion, but they weren’t busy. They were just getting pushed along through life.
“Jesus,” Rebecca surprised herself when she heard her own voice pray out loud. But after a minute of watching to see if anyone noticed, she started in again. “Jesus,” Rebecca did not want people to think she was talking to herself, so she said it a little louder. “Jesus, what do you want me to do?”
Looking around for something obvious didn’t help much. “Come, on, Rebecca,” she said to herself, “if God has prepared something good for you to do, He is also going to show it to you. Look harder.” Still nothing. Nothing but sleepy residents in various positions of comfort. Slumping over didn’t look comfortable. No, Rebecca knew she shouldn’t try to straighten them up. Even the assistants couldn’t do that very well. Once they had been propped up into a more normal position, those aged bodies would remain like that for a few seconds, or a few minutes, but inevitably a muscle would twitch and they would slide back into their slump.
“Looks like hopelessness taken on physical form,” Rebecca thought and she sat herself up a little straighter.
“Look, girl!” she said to herself. “God doesn’t lie. God doesn’t make mistakes and God don’t make junk!”
Rebecca stared first at one body and then another and then all of sudden a glint of light caught her eye. Rebecca’s eye caught the glint now that she was alert to God and the world around her. Ten minutes earlier she would not have noticed, but now, now her eye fairly drove hard right to it to see what it was. Rebecca couldn’t believe it. “No, Lord!” she said.
It was Fred. Well, it wasn’t quite Fred. It was something that had to do with Fred.
Fred was chubby. Fred always looked rumpled. Fred always wanted to please people, but most of the time whatever Fred tried to do was too complicated for him. Fred had trouble feeding himself. When you can’t feed yourself your employment options are rather limited. Pleasing people seems almost impossible, but Fred could smile. And Fred did smile, a lot! But Fred was not smiling at the moment. Fred was asleep. Fast asleep. And his mouth was half open, and at one side of his mouth the light of God’s good intentions caught and reflected off of the drool that edged its way down.
Rebecca had wiped drool before. Heck, Rebecca had one time thought of herself as an expert drool-wiper. What with four kids of her own, three grandchildren and two great grand children she had wiped plenty of drool. And if you want to count all those Sunday services Rebecca had spent in the church nursery while other parents and grandparents worshipped God without the distraction of little crawlers who were too aware of the world around them but not enough aware of the world’s rules, especially that rule that you should sit still in church.
Rebecca sighed, deeply. To Rebecca it was different when a child drooled from when an adult drooled. Maybe she hadn’t prayed hard enough. Maybe Satan was trying to fool her into embarrassing herself. “Everything else is shot,” Rebecca thought as she mulled over the possibility of wiping Fred’s drool away from his mouth. “I might as well destroy my pride as well.”
Inside Rebecca’s mind a picture flashed. It was a picture she had never seen with her eyes, but she had seen it with her mind countless times in church. It was unmistakable. It was the wispy picture of the Lord of glory on his knees wrapped in a towel washing feet. Rebecca couldn’t see whose feet Jesus washed. That part of the picture never came into focus. Oh, sure, she had pictures of Peter and his self-centered antics first declaring for all to hear, “not me!” and then a moment later, “well then, wash all of me!” What a dupe Peter was sometimes. Even in the scarce words the Bible used to describe the scene; it was obvious to Rebecca that Peter was more concerned with himself than he was with Jesus. What a dupe!
Rebecca came-to in her mind. Her body may not have shifted even a fraction of an inch, but Rebecca had changed her course in life. Rebecca knew what God wanted her to do. And Rebecca wanted to obey no matter what anyone thought.
It didn’t take long. Using the Kleenex she carried in her hand she reached up and extended her hand. She had to work to steady herself as she tried to reach that far. But she couldn’t reach far enough. Rebecca reached down and began to move her wheel chair with her empty hand. Now the other joined in and soon she reached Fred’s wheelchair. In fact, she bumped his chair.
Fred snorted a bit, but didn’t wake up. Thankfully Rebecca smiled to herself as she let out her breath. She would feel foolish wiping Fred’s face. That was not in question. The question was what would Fred think if he woke up as she was trying to wipe his mouth? Rebecca moved quickly now before she lost her nerve.
Up her hand went, but suddenly it went back down again to rearrange the Kleenex. To wipe someone else’s drool the Kleenex has to face out, instead of in as it usually does when we use it on ourselves. She wrapped the Kleenex around the end of her fingers so she could dab outward towards Fred, instead of inwards like when she took care of herself. It was a practiced move her hand had not forgotten how to do. Her hand had gone out and then retracted so many times when a child needed his or her face wiped. And now it felt good to be needed again.
God had not created her in vain! Rebecca now knew that she was still alive for a reason. God had reminded her with this small task for someone else. And Jesus did not die for her in vain either. Rebecca had heard the Shepherd’s voice and done what she had seen him doing. She simply imitated her Big Brother. What she had seen Him do so many years ago in an upper room in a far off land to men she had not known, she now did for Fred.
Fred smiled. Not one of those great big smiles which he did to please the world, but a little smile, a smile of recognition. A smile that said, “thanks for noticing me.”
Rebecca also returned the smile, and it felt good to be alive in God’s kingdom. It felt good to be in God’s kingdom where God had not forgotten her. In His love, God had showed Rebecca what to do and Rebecca had obeyed.
Rebecca slept peacefully until supper. Rebecca knew God loved her. Rebecca knew Jesus was there with her in what some would call the twilight years of life. Rebecca slept peacefully knowing that her life was not coming to an end, but only to a transition, a simple transition from the here and now to the ever after, life without end. Amen.
Today we still have Jesus’ example to follow in the daily-ness of life. Common tasks when done for God’s glory become extraordinary reflections of God’s glory in the commonplace daily routines of life.
Looking out for others is one of the things Jesus taught in the upper room that evening that led to His death. Like Rebecca you might have to die to yourself to help a person near you. It might cost you something no one else can see, and few will understand. But to you it is real. To you it is costly. To Jesus and to you it is of the utmost significance that you make the slightest move toward becoming like your Savior. It begins with the discussion you have with yourself and Jesus. The discussion you have with yourself where you wonder if you can afford to lower yourself to the point of helping a person you would rather not. That decision made in the depth of your soul is very significant to Jesus. That’s why he taught this lesson with a basin and a towel lowering himself down and taking on the role of a house servant.
How do you begin making that decision? You start by inviting Jesus into your world where you talk with yourself constantly. You ask Him to come in. And then you ask Him to show you the next decision you need to make for Him.
As we move towards the cross with Jesus this Easter, let’s remember what it cost Jesus to die there for our sins. It cost Him His life. Let’s also remember that Jesus asked us to follow Him. We can obey and we can pay the price by letting go of a little of our ego and public image. We may not want to, but we can when we remember that we ultimately do it for Jesus.
It helps to remember that sometimes, once in a while, we may get a reward here on earth too! Someone will smile at you and say thanks for noticing me. Amen.
