Roberto was one of us 6 men in the hospital room this week for two nights and as the healthiest looking and the only one who was mobile, he became “a little Christ” among us, walking humbly and quietly from bed to bed to comfort each of us any way he could, listening patiently to the overly talkative man, emptying the urinal of the overweight man, cranking beds up or down, talking quietly with the wife of the dying man, and generally being the presence of God’s love in our little 6-bed hospital room. To watch a man imitate Christ in front of me for parts of 3 days was pure joy!
Then today as I returned to hospital simply to make a follow-up appointment with my cardiologist (no, you can’t do it everywhere by phone) I got to try being like Roberto or Christ. A special needs adult in front of me in line dropped a hand full of papers that scattered on the floor. I got down on my good leg’s knee and picked them up. As I handed them to him the radiant smile on his face was another moment of blessing among loving Costa Rica people.
Philippians 2:3-8
Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.