The forty days of Lent is a time for wandering bamidbar (Hebrew for “in the wilderness”). Jesus spent forty days out in the wilderness, with no bread and no water. The Israelites left Egypt and wandered forty years in the wilderness until they reached the home that God had promised to them. In both cases, the time in the wilderness served as a time for reflection and contemplation. It was a time of hardship, but a time of growth as well. Growth in themselves and growth in their relationship with God.
So for us, Lent is a time where we head out into the wilderness, not necessarily in the literal sense, to reflect and to contemplate. While we contemplate, we must reflect on our relationship with God. We must try to encounter God in this wilderness. So while we are in the wilderness, we must ask ourselves, Who is Jesus? What is my relationship to him today?
I find myself in the wilderness too. Today my wilderness is located on the streets of Toronto. More specifically on Yonge street, between Dundas and Bloor. I spend half of my week working at 6 St. Joseph, a drop-in centre named after its address, but known more for its bright yellow door, which you can see from the street. Anyone who comes through that yellow door is welcome. So people who have been kicked out and rejected everywhere else find the Yellow Door as a haven, as a place to take refuge.
It is not hard to think that the historical person of Jesus, a person committed to poverty and a nomadic lifestyle, would have found himself here once or twice had he be born in 21st century Toronto instead of 1st century Judaea. While I don’t encounter the historical Jesus at the Yellow Door, I do encounter Jesus in a different way. I encounter Jesus through the people I meet there.
Jesus is present to me through the people that I meet at the Yellow Door. This fact often occurs to me when I hear people’s stories, about their past and even what’s going on in their life right now. While I listen, these conversations often seem ordinary. But then there is all too often a moment when it hits me and I think, wow I am encountering Jesus, right here, right now. When I reflect back on these encounters, I realize that I have encountered Jesus in his entirety.
What do I mean by that? Well, I will tell you. According to Catholic doctrine, Jesus has two distinct natures. The first nature is divine; he is the Son of God. The second nature is wholly human; he is just like you and me. Let me explain further.
There are times at the Yellow Door when I encounter Jesus as the divine. As the divine, he is the ultimate Other. Because he is an Other, I can never fully know or understand him. This is true with many Jesuses that I meet. Despite my efforts, I cannot even pretend to understand what it means to struggle with an addiction or to live out on the streets. Encountering this divine Jesus helps me realize my limitations as a human being.
It is this Jesus that scares me away because I feel out of my depth, because I feel that I cannot relate. So in these instances, what can I do? What does Jesus need from me? Often times it is just to listen and to be truly present. He needs me to treat him like a human being, because he is that too.
There are also times when I encounter Jesus as a human being. With this Jesus, I can relate to him easily because we have lots in common. He breathes just like me. He can feel love and hate. He can be embarrassed. He can laugh and he can cry. It is here that I see Jesus as a human being, just like me, with everyday issues just like me. This Jesus is fragile. This Jesus is undeniably ordinary. It is this Jesus that I ignore all too often because there is nothing particularly remarkable about him.
If I was walking along the road in Galilee, admiring the sloping hills and lush greenery, would I have been struck by this man from Nazareth if he had passed us by? Probably not. When he was carrying a cross along a narrow road in Jerusalem, would I have said, There goes our God who is completely innocent? More than likely I would have actually said, There goes just another criminal. I wonder what he did? My encounters at the Yellow Door have taught me that Jesus would not have stood out, not if I didn’t take the time to get to know him. So what does this ever so human, ever so ordinary, Jesus call me to do? Again he calls me to be present with him. He calls me to be human with him.
Out in the wilderness that is Toronto, I have encountered God, although it was not in the way that I expected. But through these encounters, I have come to know Jesus in a more intimate way than I did before. To me, he is no longer some far off historical figure or invisible being. He is the person right in front of me, right now. So for me, through all the noise and distractions, I must be present with him. I must be in the moment. That is what he calls me to do.
For me, that is a challenge and it is a challenge that I often fail. All too often do I stop trying to relate to this unknown Jesus and all too often do I ignore this ordinary Jesus. But I take comfort in the fact that both the Israelites and Jesus struggled in the wilderness too. And I take comfort in the fact that like Jesus I have forty days in the wilderness to work on this. And if forty days is not enough, perhaps I will try forty years bamidbar next.