While sitting in a waiting room I was drawn to the face of a man my age. There was something about his eyes that said, “You know me.” My internal computer was running on high capacity as it searched for someone, somewhere in times past. Was he once one of my best friends? Decades part us from childhood pals and we add pounds and wrinkles and lose hair that is no longer the same color. Just as I was about to approach him and ask who he was a lady returned to him and they left. Now I am haunted. Regularly we see people who remind us of another, but this was different. I could not identify who that might be and of course it might have been a once close friend.
I must confess the very human trait of being extra nice to people who remind me of people I love. As a teacher I have to be very aware that I do not do the opposite of not being kind to someone who reminds me of someone I don’t like. Sorry, I am not Will Rogers. I don’t like everyone. I’m not sure God likes everyone. He loves all of us but there is a difference between liking and loving. Loving is wanting others to do well and be happy and healthy. Liking is wanting to be with them. I doubt very much that Jesus liked Pilate, Herod, Caiaphas and company that terrible Thursday night. The stench of stupid hatred in the room was so foreign to His nature He had to be repulsed by those who were torturing Him. Yet there was a place in God’s Kingdom for each of them; if they so chose.
Written by Roger Bothwell on March 4, 2013
Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574
Rogerbothwell.org