Jesus, the Ultimate Jewish Repairman

 

My washing machine broke this weekend.  It has been one of those seasons where it seems like things are constantly breaking.   My microwave stopped working a couple of months ago, my dryer needed a new belt a few weeks ago and this time it was my washing machine.  If only all of my appliances could break on the same day it would make life easier.  Or better yet, if they never broke at all!  But unfortunately it seems like it is just one of the annoyances we have to deal with in life.  

The repair man arrived, a friendly looking man in his late 50's with fly away blond hair and an earring on one ear.  He looked more like a rock star than a washer repair man but I was just happy someone had arrived to fix my machine.  He loved my dogs which was great because one of my dogs came from a shelter.  The shelter said that he was a Italian Greyhound mix.  The part the shelter left out was that it was mixed with Pit Bull.  He can be very aggressive and it makes me nervous any time I introduce him to people.  But both of my dogs really liked the washing machine repairman. If my dogs like him that is proof he must be a good fellow.  He was also very chatty and he had a noticeable accent that sounded Russian to me.  I asked where he was from and he said he was from the Ukraine.  I mentioned I had taken a Russian class once after my husband returned from a month long mission trip to Russia.  This of course intrigued him. 

After showing him my washing machine he quickly jumped in to work on it.  He seemed very happy to chat while he was working and it appeared he could multitask so I obliged and chatted with him while he was working.  He wanted to know more about my husband's trip to Russia.  I said that it was in 1991.   He responded, "Oh, the early 90's.  That was a good time to go.  Russia was pretty democratic at that point."   I said that my husband spent a month there and was handing out Bibles and starting churches.  I mentioned that people were even having fist fights over Bibles when they were being handed out.  This didn't surprise him at all. I learned that he had to leave Russia before the 90's because of religious persecution.  He was Jewish and he said I would not believe some of the things he had seen.  He did not appear to want to go into details, but from what I learned he had family members that had suffered through the Holocaust, and because of Stalin many of the their freedoms were taken from them and many family members were killed for their Jewish faith.  I agreed and said that there was no way I could ever really understand.  Unless you have gone through that kind of thing personally there is no way to really understand.  I said I could try to sympathize but that was really all I could do. 

He said that he was thankful to be in America now but that he was not a fan of Obama though.  He greatly lamented that he had some Jewish friends that voted for him.  He quoted Winston Churchill and said, “Show me a young Conservative and I'll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old Liberal and I'll show you someone with no brains.”  I laughed out loud at this and said that there was much truth in that!  I mentioned that he seemed very intelligent and he said that he had two college degrees. I said he should be teaching classes instead of repairing washing machines but he said that he had four grandchildren at home he spent time teaching.  I was still curious why someone with the life experience and depth of knowledge he appeared to have would be content with the mundane job of just fixing broken washing machines but the conversation moved on to other things. 

At this point he was fully aware of my Christian beliefs.  It isn't something I hide of course.  So he offered several interesting points to me.  One was that he believed in God and that he believed it really didn't matter what God you believed in or prayed to and that most religions have the basis of the Old Testament, specifically the 10 commandments, as the moral foundation for their beliefs.  I said there was definitely similarities in many religions. 

He did not give me any more time to talk and then jumped in with a story about how some Jehovah's Witnesses came to his door a while back.  I said, "They have some strange ideas."  He said, "Yeah right!?"  Then he said that the first time they came he pretended that he only spoke Russian.  A few weeks later some Jehovah's Witnesses that spoke Russian showed up at his door.  I laughed out loud at that!  He then said it was frustrating because they said that the Jews were God's chosen people.  So he said, "Then if we are chosen why do we need to become Jehovah's Witnesses?"  Of course I laughed at this.  His logic made sense to me.  I said that as Christians we do believe that the Jews are God's chosen people and that because of that I believe much of the persecution that the Jews have had to endure is in part because Satan hates them because of that and there is a giant target on their back, so to speak.  The repairman heartily agreed with me on this one. 

At this point I took the opportunity to mention that I had friends that are Jewish.  Although I anticipated what his response would be, I said "I have a very good friend that is a Messianic Jew!"  Just as I expected his response was a heated and frustrated, "Oh. Messianic Jews!"  Then he had to tell me the story when he was growing up his family was extremely angry at him over buying a "Jesus Christ Superstar" record.  He went on to explain how you can't really be Jewish and accept Jesus.

Then I said I had a question, a question I have had for a while.  Why is it that someone who is Jewish can accept basically anything?  They can dabble in Kabbalah, the occult, there are even atheist Jews, basically they can believe anything at all but accept Jesus.  Is it because of the experience that Jews have had with Christians?  He said that was it.  He said that during the Holocaust the Christians, primarily Catholics, did not help. I said that there were some Christians that did help though.  He agreed but said that 95% did not.  I said that just because the "church" did not help does not mean that Jesus still is not the Messiah.  Even the Old Testament prophesied that the promised Messiah had to have been born and lived at the time that Jesus Christ was on earth.  Even Jesus suffered at the hands of the church and was crucified. 

He thought for a brief moment.  He said, well if I accepted Jesus my father would probably kill me.  Then he thought for a moment and said, "It isn't like I do everything just because my father wants me to though."  Ah.  The wheels were turning.  I smiled and said, just something to think about.  He finished my washing machine.  I gladly paid him. He said, "Merry Christmas."  I said, "Happy Hanukkah."  I said I really enjoyed chatting with him.  I really did.  What a wonderfully intelligent and interesting man.  I do know God has a special place in his heart for the Jews.  Many have had to endure so much.  I would love to think that they could come "full circle" as I see it and understand who the promised Messiah is here on earth before they get to the other side, but I do feel like he was not rejecting Jesus.  He was just not sure yet.  He loved God, that I could see and I am so thankful that God does look at our hearts.  I will indeed pray that my Jewish repairman will at some point meet Jesus, the ultimate Jewish repairman!   There is plenty of things in this world that need to be fixed and we have the God given ability to do so, but we cannot fix our own souls.  Thankfully we can call on Jesus anytime :  the repairman for our souls and lost and broken world!