The Woman on the Sidewalk

As I write this I am looking out on Las Vegas Strip from my hotel room balcony on the 36th floor of MGM Signature Hotel, Tower 3. It is an incredible view on a beautiful day in March. It is cool (low 60s), and the morning sun is shining on the brown and burgundy mountains in the distance. There are a few low clouds on some of the mountains and snow is visible on the highest peaks. More importantly, for the three days I have been here, I have not seen a mosquito, fly, or biting insect.

There is excitement in the air in Vegas, always excitement. It is the town that has learned to feed our lust for contentment, that counterfeit impulse that tells us we can be happy if we just strike it rich. There are lights, beautiful buildings, towers, ceilings with blue skies and clouds over head, fountains, pirate ships, palaces, pyramids, and lots of people. Everything in this city is designed to attract and distract, to appeal to our base desires, to remove our inhibitions and ultimately to make us happy, but it’s a lie, a Hollywood lie…or more correctly, a Garden of Eden lie.

Just yesterday afternoon my son Levi and I braved the crowds on Las Vegas Strip to see some of the attractions. We were on the side walk walking away from the Bellagio fountains toward the Strip. I looked in front of us toward the six lanes of traffic and saw a woman lying on the sidewalk about ten feet from the curb. It was apparent that she had just fallen down and was possibly injured. A man was standing on one side of her, looking back and forth, and a young woman was on her other side. The three of them looked like an island in a river of moving people. The young woman was consoling her while the man stood over her to restrain the stampede.

I picked up the pace and mumbled something about the woman to Levi, but I don’t think he heard me. He stayed right behind me as we maneuvered through the throng. I wanted to go over and check to see if she was alright, but the crowd was thick and full of highly motivated people. We were going nowhere fast. Distances, like everything else in Vegas, are very deceptive, and they were further away from us than it appeared.

As we got closer, Levi and I were swarmed by men trying to hand us cards with almost naked women on them. They were like baseball cards for prostitutes. I walked straight through the flesh peddlers with Levi in my wake and ignored them. We were almost in reach of the woman laying on the sidewalk, when a young man threw himself in front us and stuck a home-made CD in my face. It happened so quickly that I blocked his hand holding the CD and almost pushed him on top of his fellow pan handlers. He yelled to anyone who would listen, that I was a racist who didn’t appreciate Rap music. What I didn’t appreciate was that he was a few feet away from a person in need, and he was oblivious to her and stood in the way of someone who wanted to help.  He had a real opportunity to help but he didn’t.

By the time we waded through pornographers, musicians, and gamblers, the woman was on her feet and being led away by the younger woman. She seemed disoriented, but they moved away from us as if they were caught in a riptide of people. Meanwhile the man who was with her was still standing there. I asked him, “Are you all OK?” He looked at me with a blank stare, and then walked away, appearing as if he was overwhelmed.

Apparently the woman was alright or at least good enough to be led out of the fray. Fortunately she was not alone that day because if she was, the crowd would have walked on her as if she was concrete or asphalt.

What I saw on Las Vegas Strip on that sunny day was a picture of what happens all around us every day. There are vulnerable people who fall down emotionally on the sidewalks of our lives, and if we aren’t paying attention, we will pass them by. We are often too busy with our own pursuits to even notice them. We are fully capable of rendering aid, but we have our own goals in mind: goals of happiness, desire, and financial gain. Meanwhile, the vulnerable crumple under our feet, and if they don’t move, we might just trample them.

But Christ is rich in mercy, and he says, “Come to me all that are weary and heavy laden…” And we are Christ’s. If we will strive to be like him we must seek the hurting. O that God would give us eyes to see those in need, ears to listen to them and wisdom to lead them to the throne of grace.