Am I my brother’s keeper?
There he lay in the gathering gloom of the hot Indian evening, hardly discernible from the rags that partly covered him. At a glance, he almost appeared to be just another of the piles of refuse swept into a corner. Then I saw a movement. A dark, scrawny arm appeared from the rags, outstretching a hand, hopefully cupped to receive a little baksheesh from the passersby.
From where I was standing a little distance away, I could barely see his face and couldn’t hear his voice. It was his eyes that spoke volumes to me as I stood on that crowded street. Sad, empty and set deep in their sockets, they spoke only of despair.
An impoverished human being, reduced to beggary. As his pleas were ignored, he withdrew under his pathetic camouflage like a frightened animal. But he is no animal. Within that taut covering of skin, within that prison cage of ribs, somewhere behind those haunting eyes, there exists a human spirit—a precious soul loved by God, for whom Christ died on Calvary’s cross.
For a moment I tried to put my soul inside that emaciated form that knows nothing of what we in our luxuriating comfort consider to be essential for survival: someone who cares, ample food, clean water, adequate shelter, personal hygiene, and a respectable covering. I tried to look out through those eyes to see things as he might—hopeless despair, helpless fear, and a homeless future. Of course, it is most unlikely that anyone brought into the world in a land of gospel light and surrounded by prayer, Christian values, and blessings, could even touch the ragged hem of the sackcloth that beggar clutched around his skin and bones, or get the feel of what living in this world means to him.
“Without Christ…having no hope, and without God in the world.” Those words came hammering into my mind and I was profoundly convicted of having a heart from which knows so little of the love of Christ for humankind. Having eyes so seldom watered with an honest tear for the lost and perishing, my fellow-travellers to eternity.
Two men on an Indian street, but an unbridgeable gulf between them of privilege, culture, and language—at least, that was the excuse given to God as I turned to make my way back to my comfortable capsule of lodging, food, and fellowship.
Fifteen thousand miles away, another scene. No beggars here. I sat waiting in a modern shopping plaza and watched the people go by. Hardly a smile creased a face. Lines of care, the tense jaw, frowns of anxiety were frequent as these shoppers walked among the glittering baubles of affluence.
Scanning those faces I became aware that the music that had been playing over the sound system had changed. The raucous racket of rock was replaced by the sweet-singing voice of a woman, yet singing one of the world’s songs. Only one line do I remember. It went something like this, “If there’s anybody out there, shine on me.”
How ?tting it all seemed to be, expressing so eloquently what was etched in the faces of the people as they scurried by, seeking to ?ll up the present moment. “Is there anybody out there?” “If there is, does He care about me?” “Does He care enough to help me?”
No beggars! No rags! No dirt! But just as lost if they have no Christ as Saviour, no God as Father, and no hope forever. Now what will my excuse be? We speak the same language. We live in the same culture. How can I turn from these with cold heart and dry eyes and an undisturbed conscience? I am my brother’s keeper!
We who have known salvation’s day have a Light for their darkness. We have the Bread for their hunger, the Water of life for their burning thirst and the Hope for their emptiness. Whatever will our answer be when we give account at last?
May God help us not to be ashamed of the Lord Jesus, nor His gospel. As we prostrate ourselves before Him, confessing the sin of loveless hearts, it may be in His mercy He will touch us with the tincture of His compassion for the lost and open again the floodgates of our tears and unloose these stammering tongues to tell “His love immense, unsearchable.”
“Shall we, whose souls are lighted with wisdom from on high,
Shall we to men benighted, the lamp of life deny?
Salvation! Oh, salvation! The joyful sound proclaim,
Till earth’s remotest station has learned Messiah’s Name.”
—Excerpted from The Watered Garden