Timothy (October 2017)

The most beautiful thing my eyes have ever seen is tears gushing down Timothy’s cheeks.  “Nevertheless Father – not my will, but your will be done!”

Two friends and I had agreed that we were done for the night – each of us had to be up early the next morning for various responsibilities, and it was nearing midnight. We weaved past glowing skyscrapers along the dark but still thriving city sidewalks, back to our college campus. Our hearts and steps were light following the past few hours of spontaneous evangelism. Sleepily rejoicing, we recounted how God had worked in and through each of our interactions – until our conversation was interrupted.

“Hey! I got a question I bet you won’t know the answer to!” Came the drunken voice from the wall beside us. A decent amount of time spent in Chicago had trained us to ignore shouts from strangers; this time, however – I can only accredit the Holy Spirit as to why – each of us stopped and engaged the man. He was slumped on an upside-down crate against the side of the building we had been walking past, and his slurred words and clumsy, brash body language clearly indicated his drunkenness. Seeing that he had our attention, he blurted out, “What is the name of Donald Trump’s wife?” The last consonant of each word slid into the next as he leaned forward anticipating a delayed response, which we delivered. We were a little ashamed that it took about thirty seconds of stumbling over various barely-related names before we arrived at the correct answer, which prompted yet more questions. “How many kids does Donald Trump have? What’s the name of his son? Who’s the vice-president?” Our failure to answer any of his questions accurately on the first try proved that we had more than groggy brains to blame for our deficient political knowledge.

Finally, we intercepted the man’s interrogations to ask him a question. “Hold on, Sir – what is your name?”

“Nothing,” he said. His answer immediately swept away my slightly skeptical impression of him for one of heart-wrenching compassion. Again, we asked him what his name was;      “Nothing,” he replied, his half-jovial, half-abrasive facade breaking slightly now. “My name is nothing. It doesn’t matter.” He looked down at his ripped sneakers, defeated, as if years of uncaring people had taught him not to expect any reassurance from us.

“Can we pray with you, Sir?” we asked, and he solemnly nodded his head. Circling around him, we took his rough brown hands in ours and began to pray and speak truth over him. Truth about His identity – the forgiveness, grace, love, and unique purpose he had been given. The more we prayed, the more passionate and frequent his interjections became – “Oh, Father. Yes, Father!” – And the less slurred were his words; in fact, he now seemed completely sober – until he broke down sobbing.

“Nevertheless, not my will Father – but your will be done!” He threw his head back and the knuckles of his open hands slammed against the brick wall behind him, arms stretched out so that his body formed a crucifix. How can awe, anguish, and hope of the deepest measure be expressed on one man’s face all at once? He cried out as he felt the weight and reality of what Jesus did for him more acutely than I have ever been able to understand or explain it.

“He could have said nuh-uh, daddy. I don’t wanna do it. But he said, ‘nevertheless, not my will Father – but your will be done!’” Tears evidenced candid metamorphosis from hopelessness to hope, dripping pure onto this man’s tarnished and worn clothes. “And he did it for me. He did it for me!”

As we continued to pray, now all the more fervently with irrepressible smiles spread across our faces, he uttered those words over and over again, as if he could taste the blood on Jesus’ tongue in his own mouth: “Nevertheless, Father, not my will, but your will be done!” With shaking hands, he touched his palms where the nails would have driven through skin, flesh, and bone. And slowly, he stretched his arms out again, looking from right to left before again breaking down into sobs and shaking his head in disbelief. He repeated this motion continuously, then he stopped us mid-sentence.

“Timothy. My name is Timothy. And before y’all came by, I was about to kill myself.”

We walked away that night left in awe by the reverberations that result when Christianity hits rock-bottom – the paradoxical enigma where, against all odds, the greatest pain collides with the greatest joy. The Gospel somehow fuses together the two extremes of human emotion to form a glorious gift of redemption. We witnessed the reflection of the most radical paradox of all time – the cross – in the tears on Timothy’s cheeks.

What an absolute honor, my Jesus.