Jesus is on Facebook

I recently met a man whose life experience was truly inspirational. We were sitting in a dilapidated matatu that plies our route, and while waiting to fill up at the noisy bus station, I started a conversation to carry us through while the crew frantically called out for passengers. An easy topic to begin with was the state of the economy and escalating food prices and politics.

“So how was your day?” I began rather nervous, carefully choosing my words.

“Fine, thank you!” came the raspy but hearty reply, slightly sounding like a charismatic preacher. Then the inevitable silence fell. Two men seated next to each other, stranded in a half-filled matatu, suspicious, uncomfortable and lacking substance for conversation.  It’s just that men, unlike women, do not open us so easily due to matters of security, self image and social status.

What if he was gay? Or what if he began an endless discourse on the joys of giving, ending his monologue with a direct solicitation for something small for the ministry? I know that feeling when people cast sideways glances at you for trying to be sociable. But just as my mind was getting swamped with endless possibilities, suddenly he spoke up.

“Jesus is on Facebook,” he chirped, as-a-matter-of-factly.

“What?”

“I said Jesus is on Facebook.”

Now my suspicions were confirmed. You know that verse that says don’t believe guys who tell you Christ is back in such and such a place?

I shifted my light frame preparing a counterattack. My index finger was already in the air when he cut me short.

“Have you been to hell and back?” the raspy voice was a little louder.

“Wha…I mean…How do you mean?” I stuttered.

“I have been to hell and back.”

“Do tell, I am curious,” my eyebrows shot skywards.

“Well everything went wrong,” he continued, a broad infectious smile sprawling across his wrinkled face. He painted a grim picture on the canvas of my mind and I think my greatest struggle was not what had transpired in his life but how he could sit there so calmly and recount the most heart wrenching account I ever heard. Forget Job, this guy had seen worse. Mrs. Raspy Voice had literally shot at him and had not missed the side of his head. After eight hours in surgery the doctor announced he would make it, but without hearing in his right ear. His employer terminated him citing the usual down-sizing, and the whole severance package went into the medical bills.

As if that was not enough, the cantankerous wife had moved on with a younger man, a truck driver. The property they had been working on clearing was repossessed. The elder son, responding to pressure from bad company, had rolled their car in an accident. Two kids died in the process. The car was a write off, but worse, the young man was given 5 years for wreckless driving. The younger one took his life after a stormy relationship with a foreign girl he’d travelled with recently on a trip to the coast. They had met on Facebook.

“Na bado,” continued my friend. “And there’s more.” And his speech of a paintbrush continued the agonizing revelation. Prostate cancer, bankruptcy, and separation plagued this man.

I wasn’t sure I was listening any more.

“I am moving into a small house,” he gladly announced, patting the small brown travelling bag wedged between his bony knees. Shouldn’t he be seeking refuge upcountry? No, his wider family has ostracized him because of his new-found belief.

I was totally flummoxed. I managed to gasp, “And what do you believe?”

“Jesus is alive and well,” he announced boldly and proudly. “And I met Him on Facebook. You see, I used a cyber-café attendant to find out what goes on online. And I found Christians sharing notes and encouraging each other. So I thought, this thing took my son – how can it offer me solutions?  The attendant left me for a moment but he ran a video clip of a pastor who was speaking about salvation alone in Christ. He spoke from Roman 10:7… that if you confess with your mouth ‘Jesus is Lord’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. I received Christ!”

While my religious mind reeled the matatu filled up and roared off towards our homes in the hills west of the city. He looked forward at the traffic, humming a familiar tune. I couldn’t remember the last time I sang it, despite my 15 years in mainstream church. As I grappled for the words, the silent hymn resonated powerfully with something in me. It was like something came alive in me!

Raspy hummed on as I finally made out the words, “I will cling to the old rugged cross, and exchange it someday for a crown.”

Yes, Jesus is on Facebook.

2011

09/06

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