In the restroom at the local DMV, I stepped into the handicapped stall (it’s still easier to pull myself up from a low toilet than to stand up on my own) to see, well, what you don’t want to see on the floor. Someone had totally missed the toilet bowl, leaving a brown mess.

I chose another stall, but reported the need for a cleanup.

One of our former pastors, Trent, gave this morning’s video devotional. He said usually he’s just sort of medium energy, but some days he wakens, ready to encourage and give hope to everyone he meets. On one of those days, he walked into the coffee shop associated with his church. A man came out of the restroom as Trent walked toward it.

The Smile that Turned to Disgust

Ready to encourage, Trent smiled at the man. Then he stepped into the restroom and saw a mess, evidently left behind by the man to whom Trent had just given a warm smile. His first inclination was to confront the guy. But then he remembered that Jesus served others. He didn’t run after them to slug them or ask why they’d been so inconsiderate.

Rather, He entered their lives to change them, to give them hope, to clean up their (my) messes.

Trent cleaned up the toilet and went about his work for the day.

I Didn’t Clean Up the Mess

I didn’t clean up the mess. And I had no idea who left it behind. But I sure related to Trent’s story. How often do I judge a person because of something they did that I wouldn’t do, or that I think is inconsiderate, rude, filthy, or just a wrong choice?

Yesterday I drove toward our local Safeway. As I waited at a left-turn red light, a disabled woman in an electric wheelchair started to cross the street parallel to me, with the light red.

I was terrified that she would be hit by the cars speeding through the green-lit intersection she was crossing. At one point, a driver slowed, then picked up speed again just as she stopped, then began moving her wheelchair forward.

“Girl, stop! You shouldn’t be in the street,” I wanted to shout.

One Who Stepped into the Breach

Just then, a woman in the left turn lane perpendicular to me (right where the girl was in her wheelchair), got out of her car, motioned the disabled woman forward, stepped in front of the oncoming traffic, and held out her hand to stop the cars.

The woman in the wheelchair crossed the street safely, and I thanked God over and over for this unknown woman who stepped into the breach, at risk to herself, to protect someone she didn’t know.

How Do We React?

So how do we react, either when disappointed or angered by another’s actions, or when there is a desperate need we can address?

Do we walk away in disgust? Give the person a dirty look when we see him/her again?

Do we step out of our cars, our safety zone, our homes to help a wounded individual reach their destination safely?

The woman who stepped out of her car reminded me of Jesus, who helped a wounded woman caught in adultery. Jewish leaders brought her to Jesus in an attempt to trap him. They looked down on her in her sin, rather than caring enough to help her become new.

At dawn he (Jesus) appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group (publicly embarrass her and put Jesus on the spot) and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

…When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” (Jesus called them on their hypocrisy) Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

 “No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

Do You Want to Get Well?

Jesus asked the man at the Pool of Bethesda, “Do you want to get well?”

Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

Jesus Didn’t Let the Impossible Stop Him

Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

John 5:2-9, NIV

In each of these situations, and many more, Jesus stepped into the breach to make a person whole, to free them from the chains that bound them.

May you and I be people who step into the breach for those around us.