Last night when I snuggled under my own quilt in my own bed I thanked God I wasn’t over-nighting in a hospital like the night before. Not that Rush isn’t a beautiful facility with a solicitous staff, but all of us rest best in our own beds. My 14 hour stay in the ER was an unexpected interruption to my weekend plans, but when it was over, that’s all it had been: an interruption.
All of us like to plan our lives, even people like me who aren’t that organized. We enjoy predicting what’ll happen when, then watching it work out exactly that way. When interruptions rearrange things, we get annoyed. It feels like riding in a people-packed car and being asked to squeeze in a few more. Ugh.
Jesus was a champion at shuffling his day to embrace interruptions. If he resented them, Scripture doesn’t let us know. We might think, “Yes, but when someone stopped him it was for an important reason. My interruptions are small potatoes.”
But Jesus had a choice of how to respond in each case, just as we do. Although we’ve never heard the literal voice of Jesus, I can’t imagine him reacting in a biting tone, “Get away from me! I don’t have time right now.”
Others around him sometimes said that, but never him. He seemed to view an approaching interrupter as a chance to get to know a stranger or satisfy a need. I wish I could faithfully mimic that, but rearranging plans doesn’t come without balking first. It requires setting aside what I’ve already set as my #1 priority and substituting something lesser, at least lesser to me.
But as we watch Jesus, he acts just the opposite. The Bible says, in reference to his responses to interruptions, “He was deeply moved,” or “He felt compassion.” Sometimes he was hit with so many consecutive interruptions he didn’t even have a chance to eat or time to rest, yet he continued to steadily dispense kindness and grace.
If I resist the interruptions God sends (which he doesn’t label as interruptions), I could be missing out on some of life’s greatest perks. Jesus held each day lightly, even each hour, faithfully watching for his Father’s signals to do this or that, go left or right. Humanly speaking, he didn’t know what awaited, and no doubt there were situations he didn’t want to participate in, episodes that brought on stress. But when he cooperated, which was always, miracles happened. And he got to take part in them.
It’s possible that the more I’m willing to embrace interruptions with anticipation, the greater my chance of participating in God’s miracles… even if some day it means trying to get cozy in a hospital bed.
“Great crowds came to him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, and… he healed them. Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for these people.” (Matthew 15:30,32)