via Daily Prompt: Trace

The crowd pushed and heaved to get a better view.

“This man, Jesus, was saying some crazy things, and people were just as crazy to believe it. I just happened to be in the area. I certainly wouldn’t go out of my way, but the spectacle caught my attention,” I said to guy next to me.

“I am comfortable with my life,” I told him. “I don’t need the drama. I don’t need to go chasing after every man who claims to have a direct line to God, and God knows there are many of them these days. They’re all crazy! They end up getting carried away with their own rhetoric. They make the Roman authorities nervous, and then they are thrown in jail or killed to make an example of them, and the crowd disperses. It always does.”

The guy next to me didn’t seem to hear what I said. He was listening to Jesus, so I listened for a few seconds.

“This guy Jesus is a good talker, isn’t he,” I said in case the guy might hear me this time. “The people hang on every word. He talks like he really knows what he is talking about, but no different than the last guy I guess. I didn’t really listen to him. Never really had the chance. More like, I wasn’t really interested.”

He looked at me only long enough to signal that he knew I was there, but he went on focusing on Jesus apparently wrapping up his message.

“Not that I’m not spiritual or anything,” I continued. “I am as spiritual as the next guy. I try to be a good person. I don’t hurt anyone. I’m certainly not like those guys this Jesus hangs around. Good for them, though. They need someone like Jesus to straighten them out. Maybe they will get their lives together.”

And, with that, the crowd began to break up and wander off. The guy next to me apparently left also. He was nowhere to be found.

“I guess this Jesus is done talking”, I thought. “Not sure what he was even talking about. I thought I heard someone say something about a miracle. Crazy! I would never get suckered like that.”

And the Son of God moved on without leaving a trace that He had ever been there, that I had ever encountered Him or ever heard anything He might have said.