There are Christians and there are so-called Christians. It’s not hard to tell them apart.
So-called Christians do a lot of pontificating and shouting about Jesus, but don’t seem too concerned about actually acting like Christians, at least on a regular basis. Real Christians just act like Christians, often without even thinking about it or mentioning Jesus and let it go at that.
To show you what I mean, let me tell you about something that happened to my daughter Christen in my presence in December 1994, when she was 15. This event was a powerfully mysterious one, and we talked about it many times over the years. I believe that Christen eventually came to believe that her initial conclusion about what happened was correct.
Christen lived in Georgia with her mother. She came up to New Jersey to visit me just after Christmas that year, and, as we always did, we spent a day in New York City shopping, having dinner, and going to a Broadway show. This day was bitterly cold and windy and Chris was wearing her favorite winter coat—a dressy black and white checkered one. While we were shopping, I bought her a winter parka at the Eddie Bauer store and she put her long woolen coat in a large shopping bag.
As we walked, we came to an intersection where a young woman sat on the corner pavement with a cup asking for money. She was very thin and was only wearing jeans and a light cotton sweater that hung down over one shoulder revealing that her brown skin was nearly gray from the cold. I reached into my pocket and pulled out some folding money and some coins and dropped them into her cup and proceeded to cross the street with Christen. But when we reached the other side, Christen stopped me and said, “Dad, we have to do something for her.”
“What would you like to do,” I asked.
“I want to give her my coat.”
“Your favorite coat?”
“Dad! She needs it more than I do, and, anyway, I’ve got two coats!” She said this with all of the “I can’t believe you’re so stupid” tone that some teenage girls reserve only for their fathers.
“Okay, let’s go,” I said, and we crossed back to the other corner where Christen helped the young woman put her coat on. Thinking we were finished, I turned to cross the street again, but Christen stopped me and said, “Dad, she’s hungry too.”
“Right! Okay, I’ll go in that deli and get something. You stay here and keep an eye on her in case she moves off and I’ll be right back.”
I managed to find some hot soup and some bread in the deli and I returned to the corner in less than five minutes to find that the woman was no longer there.
“Christen, where is she?”
“She’s gone—disappeared!”
“What do you mean disappeared? Didn’t you watch her?”
“Yes! I only looked over my shoulder for a split second to see if you were coming and when I turned back, she was gone. I went to the corner and looked up and down the street and across the street, but I couldn’t see her anywhere. She just disappeared!”
So, we walked on, and as we did, I asked Christen “What do you think happened?”
“How would I know?” she answered.
“Do you remember in the Bible where Jesus says, ‘Whatever you do to the least of my brothers and sisters, you do for me?’”
“So,” Christen said, “you’re telling me I just gave my coat to Jesus?” I shrugged my shoulders and walked on carrying the hot soup and bread. Christen just walked on looking at the ground pensively without saying anything more. Before long we came upon another homeless person sitting against a building. Christen took the bag of food from me, flashed the guy one of her million-dollar smiles, said “Hi. My name’s Christen. Have some lunch.” And she handed him the soup and bread.
As we went on our way, Christen turned her head to me and matter-of-factly said without a trace of irony, “There he is again!”
Who was that? Who was the woman? The Bible verse I quoted to Christen suggested an answer, and maybe that’s who it was. But I don’t think it really matters at all. I think what matters is that Christen treated both of those people as if they were Jesus. That’s what real Christians do. That’s what all good people do, whether they’re Christians or not.
As we talked about this over the years, Christen tried to puzzle out where the woman had gone and to explain why she could not see her when she had only turned her head away for half a second, but she was unable. She became convinced that something extraordinary had happened to her which she could not explain in human terms.
Five years later, Christen fainted while she was at college, and shortly after that, she was diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension, a life-threatening condition. In spite of our best efforts to get her the best medical care, she died just over two years later, November 3, 2002, a month short of her 23rd birthday.
I don’t speculate too much about what things will be like for us after we die. I do believe we will be in the presence of God and rejoined with those whom we love, but I really don’t have any idea how that works or what it looks like. Nobody does. So, like everyone else, I fill in the gaps with my imagination. The Irish have a Gaelic condolence that translates to “May her soul sit at the right hand of God.” I like to think that’s exactly where she is. I also like to think that when she got there, the first thing she heard was somebody saying “Hey! Christen! Thanks for the nice coat!”
