Jesus Rides the Bus

“You should really ride the bus,” my friend Jess told me the other day.

Usually I take Jessica’s advice—she always recommends great books. But in this case I was not too sure.

Of course in this city public transportation is pretty chic, you know. We ride the Metro, and you can definitely be cool and ride the Metro at the same time. In fact, a lot of people think you are not cool if you don’t ride the Metro.

But riding the bus is a whole different story.

I can’t be absolutely sure, but I am fairly certain that riding the bus is generally not that cool. At least in downtown DC.

I looked at her strangely and she continued: “Jesus rides the bus, you know.”

You would have to know Jess to know that when she said that to me she was not definitively proclaiming the presence of a 2000+ year old Middle Eastern rabbi on the DC public bus system. She always has some deep spiritual truth floating around in her brain.

Jess said she knew Jesus rode the bus just the other day when she was trying to get home and the bus driver had to delay moving on to lower the handicapped lift.

For a homeless woman’s shopping cart.

Desperately annoyed passengers were further miffed when she got on smelling downright horrible. (It’s hot in DC these days, you know.)

Jess said it delighted her that they all had to wait and it delighted her that the woman who got on smelled so bad. What a great reminder for all of us sweet-smelling, Metro-riding . . . Christians.

“Jesus rides the bus, you know,” she said.