"God Has Visited His People"

[3rd Sunday of Luke, Lk 7:11-16]

When we are expecting to host guests in our homes, we take steps to assure that they will be welcomed properly.  We clean the house—from the kitchen floor to the toilet bowls, we make sure there are no reasons to give offense to our expected guest.  We probably cut the grass, perhaps pull the weeds.  We set out flowers.  We do everything we can think of to make our homes a welcoming place for our guests.

And we prepare ourselves as well.  We visit the hair salon.  We assure that we are wearing clothes that are pleasing.  We take pains to assure that even in these things nothing is left to chance.

Finally we may prepare a meal.  And for our guests, we provide an abundance of things to choose from—appetizers, salads, breads, main courses of meats and vegetables, and fruits.  And we do not skimp when it comes to desert.

Consider all the steps we’ve alluded to herein, all taken for a person we may love (if family), or a person we may want to impress (if we are friends or associates).

But how do we prepare for visits with our Lord?

“Father, what do you mean?  I don’t expect Jesus to walk through my door and be this kind of guest in my home.  What are you trying to convey to me?”

If you don’t expect to host Jesus, I would ask, “Why not?”

At every meal in our homes, we should (I dare say ‘must’) begin with offering thanks to God for the gifts He has bestowed upon us.  In short, we pray.  In thanksgiving.  In sincerity.  With respect, and with love.

And where is our Lord when we offer such prayer?  Is He not “in our midst”?  Is He not already a Guest in our home?  Or even more pointedly, are we not simply guests in the home He has provided to us?

In today’s Gospel account, we find Jesus doing what He does best—being amongst those who need Him the most.  Today, the one who most needs Jesus is a widow, a woman not unlike our Lord’s own Mother, with no husband to care for her, and an only son.  Here in the town of Nain, this woman’s son has breathed his last.  And in this image, our Lord in His compassion sees the state of His own Mother shortly hereafter as He is taken to the Cross, where she will stand near to Him and watch Him be executed, taking His own last breath, and she too will be a childless widow.

This godly compassion leads God the Son to do the impossible.  As God the Word, He speaks life into her child.  “Young man, I say to you arise!”

It is not possible for His creation to refuse to respond to the command of its Creator.  The boy sits up, and he begins to speak.

St. Luke records that Jesus “presented him to his mother.”  In another translation the word presented is substituted as delivered.

Jesus came to Nain on this day not to be entertained in the house of anyone important.  No one in Nain cleared trash from the streets in advance of His arrival.  What was important on this day was to give life, and to give it abundantly.  All the preparations in the world could not have changed the heart of God the Son to show mercy where He chose to show mercy.

“Father, are you saying that our preparations are a form of vanity?”  Let’s just say that preparations that are meaningful to God are preparations to our own hearts.  Any cleansing we do should be done first as repentance.  Any adorning we approach should be donning our intellects with study of Scripture, the Fathers, and things spiritual.  Jesus comes not to inspect our brick and mortar coverings from the weather He sends upon us.  He comes to dwell within the homes of our hearts and our spirits.

“Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit Who is in you, Whom you have from God, and you are not your own?” (1Cor 6:19)

We should prepare for His visit.  It is coming sooner than we think!