My Easter With Jesus (1995)

                  Easter is unquestionably a special and important time for all people of the Christian faith. It marks, as everyone knows, the celebration of Christ’s ascension into Heaven on the third day after his crucifixion, just as he prophesied. The promise and hope which many feel on this sacred day are magnified by the fact that Easter comes to us in the spring season–a season of rebirth, renewal, and revitalization.

                 While our calendar sets the New Year as beginning on January 1^st, I prefer to think that the New Year begins at Easter. It was at this time of year, more than two thousand years ago, that Christ’s death and resurrection wiped away everyone’s sins. Completely.  Including mine.  When I reflect on this essential tenet of my faith, I cannot help but feel that Easter is truly a time of renewal and redemption. The beginning of a new year, indeed.

                  Last Thursday evening, Rand and I were at Bel Air Presbyterian for Maundy Thursday services. After communion, our youth pastor, Roger, asked me to play piano for the sunrise service on Easter morning. Dwight, the gentleman who normally plays for the main church service, was going to be out of town and could not be there. I happily accepted, thinking that although the service was scheduled to begin at 5:30 a.m., it would really be 6:30 a.m. because of Daylight Savings on Saturday night. Wrong. FALL back, SPRING ahead. 

                On Sunday morning, I awoke groggily at 4:00 a.m. (after setting all my clocks ahead) in order to get to church by 4:45 a.m. and set up for the 5:30 service. As usual, I was running late and raced up the 405 freeway in the foggy, moonless pre-dawn darkenss.  I exited on Mulholland Highway and proceeded up the dimly lit, barren road. As I approached the stoplight at Skirball and Mulholland, my gaze was suddenly drawn to a young woman with long, blonde hair running toward the intersection. I slowed to a stop in the middle of the empty crossroads after hearing her scream for my attention. I nervously rolled down the window while quickly surveying my barren surroundings. Through sobs of tears, she told me that she had just been raped and dumped here in the hills on this remote road. The terrified young woman begged me to drive her to a gas station in Van Nuys where she was supposed to meet her girlfriend a few hours earlier.

                  I didn’t know what to do. What if this was a set up for a carjacking or some other crime? What if she had a knife or gun?  But, then again, what if she were telling the truth?  I said the fastest prayer ever and immediately Matthew 25:34-46 came to my mind.  A shortened version, of course: “I was hungry and you fed me; I was a stranger and you let me in; I was naked and you clothed me…..  Whatever you do for the least of your brothers, you do for me….   Whatever you did not do for the least of these, you did not do for me.”  If this was indeed a test of faith, it was certainly an unexpected and unwelcome one.

                  I nervously unlocked the passenger door and asked her to come around and get in. I told this frightened girl, whose eyes barely focused on anything for more than a second, that I would drive her two miles up the road to my church where there was a phone so she could call her friend, the police or anyone else. By the time we arrived at Bel Air Pres a few minutes later, her sobbing had subsided and she told me there was, in fact, no one for her to call; she simply needed to get to the gas station in Van Nuys for some unspoken reason. I parked the car, unloaded my keyboard and told her I’d be right back.  There were few people in the church at this early hour and I quickly found pastor Roger. He must have noticed that I was a little shaken and quickly asked me what was wrong. Upon hearing the story, Roger suggested that I go ahead and drive the woman where she needed to go. While he offered to find someone to go with me, I had driven Rand’s two-seater car so there was no room. Then, after promising to pray for me, Roger said not to worry about being late to play piano for the service. Dwight, the regular keyboardist, had unexpectedly shown up and was able to play in my absence. Quite an interesting development, as I now look back on it.

                  I got back in the car and drove into the San Fernando Valley. Once on the freeway, I went through another mini panic. Who was this person sitting right beside me, with long straggly hair, mascara running down her cheeks, and reeking of cigarettes?  What would I find at the Arco gas station in a very suspect area of Van Nuys? Was there a higher reason for this unanticipated detour?  Again, I prayed quietly to myself and immediately another verse came to my mind – Luke:4-5. “Fear not those who can kill the body and can do no more; rather, fear the one who can destroy both body and soul in hell.”  Boy, now there’s a comforting verse.

                  Descending into the Valley, we began to talk. Well, I talked and she curtly answered questions as I asked them. Her name was Nikki, from Kansas. She was here in California visiting friends and happened to leave a bar with the wrong person. Nikki goes to church back home on occasion. I again offered to take her to the police station, the hospital, or to her friend’s house but she refused all three. I even offered her some money. But, all she wanted was to get to the Arco station at Sepulveda and Roscoe. I never got a real, direct look at her face, but Nikki appeared to be a young woman in her early to mid-twenties. However, the more we talked, the more I sensed that this person sitting next to me, cowering in her seat, was in truth a frightened young girl.

                  We arrived at the gas station and she looked around for her friend, apparently without success. Nikki asked me to shine my headlights across the street toward some silhouetted figures standing by a dark, closed liquor store. Without warning, Nikki opened the car door, yelled for the man across the street (“Porter!”) and alighted without saying a word. I looked through the passenger window at her and she stood there for a moment looking back, still cowering, then turned and walked away. A minute later, as I drove out of the station and looked back to see her, Nikki was gone. I assume she just slipped back into the night as quickly as she appeared less than an hour before.

                  I returned to the church, set high on a hill in the Santa Monica Mountains, in time for the last half of our sunrise Easter service. I even got to play a final hymn on the piano. Yet, as the pastor spoke and the people sang, my mind was elsewhere. I thought about Nikki and prayed for her wherever she was, whoever she was. Perhaps Nikki was an innocent girl, raped and abused. Perhaps Nikki was a prostitute who had encountered a bad john. Perhaps Nikki was an angel, even an incarnation of Jesus. Or perhaps Nikki was all three. Whatever the case, I spent Easter Sunday in reflective thought about life. I spent this holy day in earnest prayer for people less fortunate than me.  I spent Easter with Jesus. What a wonderful way to begin the year.