Seeing Jesus

by Jeffrey McClain Jones

  If Philly had been a church-going person, he may have wondered what Jesus does at church. If Theresa had been more seasoned in her own church attendance, she may have wondered the same. Instead, the two new friends clung to each other and merely welcomed the accompaniment of the one whose name graced the building, like visiting a museum in the company of the one who donated all of the funds for its founding and who also filled all of its displays with curiosities and treasures.

  When they entered the sanctuary, Theresa steered Philly to a seat ten rows back from her usual slot. She saw this as a safer position, protecting Philly because of her own anxiety. Theresa also assured an empty seat on each side of them, as much out of the need for some space between herself and her church family, as for a place to include Jesus. At first, Jesus sat next to Philly, as they might have expected. But Philly could sense that same wandering desire that he had seen from Jesus whenever they encountered other people. Jesus reminded him of a small boy, filled with excitement that something amazing would certainly happen soon, anywhere around him.

  Several people took the stage, each to an instrument or microphone. Already, before the first chord was struck, Philly could tell that this would be different from church as he knew it. Song lyrics appeared on the screen above the musicians and Theresa signaled time to stand up, as others began to do the same around the auditorium of blue, padded pews. Jesus stepped into the aisle and clapped his hands above his head. He almost looked as if he were limbering up for some strenuous activity. As the first song began to build and the crowd began to sing the words on the screen, words about a great and loving King, Jesus danced in the aisle.

  Philly scanned the stoic mortals around the auditorium and marveled at the contrast between them and the Jewish carpenter dancing near him. As late arrivals passed, Jesus would dance with them briefly, smiling, welcoming them. When the first song wound down, Philly leaned over to Theresa and whispered, “Jesus is dancing in the aisle.”

  Casting a glance at the open aisle, Theresa turned to Philly and had to catch a laugh that tried to escape her lips. Philly welcomed Theresa into his ironic experience, smiling at her and again watching Jesus’s dance build toward the rousing chorus of the next song. He held his hands over his head and spun like a dervish for a moment, shouting above the voices and laughing through the song. From the corner of his eye, Philly noticed people behind him watching his misplaced attention, distracted by his distractedness. He rotated his head slightly, toward the screen and stage, only sneaking peeks at Jesus.

  By the end of the third—and final—song, Jesus seemed refreshed and ready for more, but he followed the direction of the man on the stage and returned to his seat. Philly imagined the pastor singling the rowdy dancer out, insisting that he return to his seat, to stop distracting the sedate worshippers around him. Thus, Jesus enhanced the overall entertainment value of church, for Philly, on that first Sunday.

  “Is he done dancing?” Theresa said quietly, with a nod toward the aisle.

  Philly nodded his head and grinned at Theresa. Jesus sat next to him and smiled, immune from their paradoxical playfulness. He appeared more focused. When the sermon began, however, Jesus’s focus seemed to turn toward Philly. He actually put his left arm around the back of Philly’s chair and frequently looked at him, as if silently checking in with him, or reconnecting an invisible link that required care and precision. The net effect of this behavior erased the sermon from Philly’s consciousness. He later remembered some words and a few phrases from the preacher, but he couldn’t explain the content or the theme of the talk.

  After meeting some of Theresa’s friends, and enduring their diagnostic glances and interrogative stares, Philly followed her out to the parking lot.

  Philly unlocked her car door and looked at his long-haired companion who stood on the other side of the car, turning his face into the moderate morning breeze and smiling like a spring flower making its annual debut to the accolades of the sun.

  When Philly reached his seat and Jesus magically slipped into the back, Theresa sat smiling at Philly.

  “How about some brunch?” said the man in the back seat.

  Philly looked over his right shoulder, where he found Jesus smiling, as usual, with his eyebrows raised in a sustained facial question mark. “Jesus wants brunch,” Philly said to Theresa, a dash of skepticism in his voice.

  “She wants some too,” Jesus said, just as Theresa started her reply.

  “That sounds great. But I didn’t know he actually ate anything,” she said, allowing a girlish enthusiasm to trip ahead of her own mature reason.

  Philly started the car. “No, you’re right, he doesn’t actually eat, but he seems to like restaurants.” Internally, Philly reminded himself to get something healthy, and low calorie, beginning to add up all the times he had eaten restaurant food in the past few days.

  Within less than an hour, the three of them sat around a small square table, on the patio of a restaurant on the border between Evanston and Chicago, the day beginning to warm toward the first certified promise of summer. Philly tore at a regrettable omelet, chosen out of guilty health concerns. Half of his attention available because of the uninteresting food, Philly wondered at why Jesus had suggested brunch and had added a word to tip the vote toward this particular restaurant. He had grown to accept, and even welcome, Jesus’s constant agenda. However, that acceptance had not erased Philly’s own innate introversion. It was one thing to celebrate the satisfying rush of a completed healing, it was another to ride the stomach startling careen past the boundaries of his control and into the divine purpose.

  The other half of Philly’s attention rested, of course, on Theresa. She chatted pleasantly about a memory of this restaurant, which led to memories of this neighborhood, from ten years ago, before her marriage and before her conversion to an active adult faith. Philly welcomed these quaintly presented artifacts of a life similar to his current path, laying another beam in the bridge between him and Theresa, and more shape to the increasingly recognizable personality behind Theresa’s easy smile and joyful eyes.

  Philly reached for his iced tea and noticed Jesus looking at a couple seated on the opposite side of the patio. Jesus acknowledged Philly’s recognition of the reason for their dining choice, beyond the hunger of two humans. Jesus smiled slightly, perhaps slyly. Philly had grown to recognize some of the nuances of Jesus’s many smiles, reading in them words that his companion preferred not to speak.

  Theresa noticed Philly’s attention to the other couple and then to the seat which she understood Jesus occupied. She stopped in the middle of her explanation of the changes that had taken place on Howard Street over the past decade. Philly noticed her sudden self-interruption and regretted neglecting what she had been saying. But Theresa entertained no such regrets. Instead, her eyebrows arched and she adopted a smile somewhat similar to the one Philly had seen on Jesus’s face.

  “What’s he going to do?” Theresa said.

  Philly didn’t know the answer to that yet, as evidenced by his own rising pulse rate. He marveled again at Theresa’s total acceptance of his claim that he saw and heard Jesus.

  Jesus answered her question. “I want to show them my love,” he said.

  Philly decided not to relay that answer, not wanting to assume responsibility for such a vague promise. A more mystical person might have honored the richness of Jesus’s response and the transcendent power of that love. Jesus, on the other hand, knew that Philly thought primarily in terms of moving pieces on a visible, and solid, board and added more of what Philly would consider specific content.

  “That man, whose name is Matt, has diabetes,” Jesus said. “Once you tell him that you know these facts, his name and his disease, he might allow you each to lay a hand on him to heal him of that condition.”

  Philly smiled at Theresa’s expectant pose as she waited for directions from Jesus. “He wants us to heal that man’s diabetes.”

  “Us?” Theresa said.

&nb
sp; “That’s what he said.”

  “Oh. Well, I guess, if he says so.”

  Philly took another drink of iced tea, wiped his mouth with the burnt orange, cloth napkin and nodded to Theresa, checking to see if she was ready. She nodded back. Jesus stood up and laughed, elevating Philly’s mood and expectations with the sound of it. On his way across the patio, Philly wished that he could always remember the sound of that laugh, whenever he had to do something that Jesus called him to do.

  The other couple looked up at the two people approaching them, the woman especially apprehensive at the surprise encounter.

  Philly pulled up next to the table and said, “Sorry to bother you, but I want to ask you something.” He paused a second, then addressed the man, who greeted him with stunned silence. “Is your name Matt? And do you have diabetes?”

  The stunned effect deepened. Matt seemed to be trying to remember where he had met Philly, trying to connect him with his treatment for diabetes. In his mid-forties, with a thin, tanned face, and a country club look about him, an objective observer might have struggled a bit to imagine Matt and Philly traveling in the same circles.

  “Do I know you?” Matt said.

  Philly shook his head. “No, I just had this idea come to me that your name is Matt, you have diabetes and we’re supposed to heal you.”

  The woman at the table spoke with the tone she might use after discovering a large, poisonous spider on her husband’s shoulder. “Matt?” was all she could say.

  Matt looked at his wife and then back at the two strangers. He could tell that his always-cautious wife had skipped out of her normal boundaries and found no ready response where she had landed.

  “My name is Matt,” he said. “And I do have diabetes. I guess we can test the rest of what you said by just giving it a try. What can it hurt?”

  Theresa smiled, turning especially to the wife. “My name is Theresa. I’ve never done anything like this before, but Philly has healed a few people of some pretty serious conditions.” She extended her hand in greeting.

  “I’m Rosalynn,” Matt’s wife said. “I don’t really believe in this kind of thing.” She shook Theresa’s hand.

  “I’m Phil,” Philly said, shaking hands as well. “I never believed in this sort of thing either, until it started to happen to me.”

  Jesus had positioned himself behind Matt and held his hand over the shoulder nearest to Philly. He nodded. Philly took that as his cue.

  “Okay if we put a hand on your shoulder?” Philly said.

  “Sure,” Matt said. He seemed slightly amused, as if indulging children playing a game.

  Theresa scooted up close to Philly and reached with him for Matt’s right shoulder, resting her free hand on Philly’s shoulder. Jesus joined them immediately. Then Philly spoke. “Be healed, in the name of Jesus.”

  He said these words so simply and without emotional hype, that Theresa felt disappointed. Her first thought was, “That won’t do it.”

  Philly waited a moment, checking Matt for a reaction, and then looking at Jesus.

  “Break the genetic connection of diabetes in his family,” Jesus said.

  “I break the genetic connection of diabetes from Matt’s family,” Philly said, with only the slightest increased intensity.

  At that moment, Matt sat up straighter, raised his eyebrows and grabbed his stomach. “Whoa! What was that?”

  Theresa saw where Matt’s hand had landed. “That’s where your pancreas is,” she said. Her voice escalated a bit. “God must be healing your diabetes.”

  Matt looked at Philly and then at his wife. Rosalynn appeared to be fighting back tears. This puzzled Matt, because she had never cried in public as far back as he could remember. It occurred to him to check his sophisticated insulin pump. He pushed the button and waited to test his blood sugar, which should have been slightly high just after eating. As he watched, the LED showed his level much closer to normal than he expected.

  “What’s happening,” Rosalynn said, sniffling and reaching a hand out to touch Matt.

  “It’s going down. I knew it was a bit high from the cinnamon roll and was just going to adjust. But I don’t need to adjust anything. I’ve never seen it level off like that without a dose of insulin,” he said, fascinated and yet strangely removed from the impact of the miracle.

  Jesus said to Philly, “For now, tell him that he can monitor his levels and see that he doesn’t need to program doses for meals anymore. Then he should go see his doctor to get tested.”

  Philly relayed these instructions to Matt.

  Matt stared at Philly, who assumed he was simply absorbing Jesus’s instructions. But Matt had locked onto the spiritual significance, rather than the medical implications, of Philly’s intervention. “Did God just heal me?”

  Philly nodded and smiled. “Keep an eye on it and see your doctor. He’ll let you know if you’re really healed.”

  “But, it was God that told you to do this, that told you my name and said he was gonna heal me?”

  Again Philly nodded. “It was Jesus.”

  Theresa boosted Philly’s response. “It was. It was Jesus that said he wanted to heal you.” She bubbled even as Philly and Matt remained subdued.

  Rosalynn shook her head and held both hands over her mouth. Theresa asked them about church, and faith in God, and encouraged them to check it out. She turned to Philly and said, “Tell them about Dave Michaels’ church.”

  After a low hurdle of surprise, Philly gave them the name and location of the church, so they could research online and perhaps visit. He smiled at Theresa, appreciating her flare for follow up and wondering at her apparent surrender of loyalty to her church, in favor of one she had never attended. Philly’s inexperience at churchly matters left him uncertain of the significance of this latter observation.

  Matt looked at his insulin pump, monitoring his levels again. He shook his head and then looked up at Philly. “What am I gonna tell my doctor?”

  For a moment, Philly missed the point of the question, then understood and smiled. “Well, I guess you could tell him you went to brunch on Sunday morning and, one cinnamon roll later, you were cured of diabetes.” Everyone laughed at this. Then Philly said, “Or you could tell him that Jesus healed you.” And he left it there.

  Warm handshakes, a hug between Theresa and Rosalynn, and friendly farewells ended the encounter. Back at their table, Philly left cash for the waiter, and the brunch, and he headed for the car with his two friends.

  “We make a pretty good team,” Jesus said.

  Philly chuckled, forgetting for a moment that Theresa couldn’t see or hear Jesus. When he remembered, he filled her in on Jesus’s joke. Then he responded to Jesus out loud. “You knew what you were doing when you included Theresa in this one, I can see.”

  Hearing Philly address Jesus out loud still discomforted Theresa a bit, but she smiled anyway, glad for the compliment.

  Jesus smiled at both of them and then slipped through the body of the car into the back seat.

  “Oh,” Philly said. “I’m still not used to that. He just went through the side of the car instead of climbing in the door.” Theresa laughed, still feeling off balance from the gap between what Philly was seeing and her own experience.

  “Let’s take Theresa home. I have a gift to give her there and then you and I need some time together,” Jesus said.

  Philly nodded and relayed the message.

  “A gift?” Theresa said dreamily.

  Parking his car on the street in Lincolnwood, Philly jumped out and circled the car, arriving in time to close Theresa’s door for her. Jesus stood leaning on the side of the car already, beating Philly there by virtue of his mastery over time and space. In the look on Jesus face, Philly felt a poke at his finite humanity, as the Savior watched the earnest suitor huff and puff to get around the car.

  On the way up the sidewalk, Theresa slipped her hand into Philly’s. His heart rate accelerated and he smiled covertly. Jesus, seeing all
and hearing even Philly’s thoughts, slapped Philly on the back good-naturedly. On the porch, Theresa fumbled for the right key and then handed it to Philly to open the door. Philly obliged and looked at Jesus, concerned for what was happening with Theresa.

  Jesus took the lead, once they were all in the living room and had finished greeting the cat.

  “You two just have a seat on the couch,” Jesus said.

  Philly suggested sitting on the couch to Theresa and she complied, appearing as relaxed as a person waiting for a colonoscopy. Putting his arm around her, to settle her apprehension, Philly looked to Jesus for the next step.

  “I want you to heal her blindness,” Jesus said to Philly.

  “Blindness?” Philly said out loud, jumping to a metaphorical meaning to that word, given that Theresa seemed to see okay.

  Theresa looked at Philly. “What about blindness?”

  Philly felt apologetic, suspecting Jesus was asserting that Theresa had some sort of spiritual blindness. “He says he wants to heal your ‘blindness,’” putting that word in quotes by his doubtful tone.

  Theresa reached up to her left eye. “He means my eye. I can hardly see anything out of this eye,” she said, in a hushed voice.

  Philly raised his bushy eyebrows. “Wow, I didn’t know that.” Philly smiled, “But, of course, Jesus did.”

  Theresa stiffened, sitting up straighter and looking scared. “I feel a vibration in my eye. Is that normal?”

  Philly glanced at Jesus sitting on the other side of Theresa and downloaded comfort from the pleased look on Jesus’s face.

  “It’s fine,” Philly said. “I think Jesus is starting to heal you already.”

  “The doctors said there was nothing they could do about it. I won’t ever be able to see out of it,” Theresa said.

  “I think all that changes now,” Philly said.