Lk 15:1-10 Here It Is!

Thursday of the Thirty-Second a Week in Ordinary Time

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By FAITH NOAH

“The coming of the Kingdom of God cannot be observed,

and no one will announce, ‘Look, here it is,’ or, ‘There it is.’

For behold, the Kingdom of God is among you.”

If it were a snake, it would’ve bitten you.

As a kid, I lost just about everything. After seemingly endless searching, I would call upon my last resort: my mother. She would find it within seconds. Every single time. “If it were a snake, it would’ve bitten you, Faith,” she’d tell me.

Now that I’m in college…nothing has changed. In fact, the first task of parent’s weekend was to watch my mom find everything I had somehow lost after only one month living in a tiny room.

I’ve realized that missing what’s right in front of me is not something I’m going to grow out of it. And I would venture to say that the same can be said about humanity.

Look at the Pharisees. They knew Jewish Law inside and out. They knew the prophecies. They knew about the long-awaited Messiah. Yet, when He finally came, they couldn’t put the pieces together.

In fact, look at us. We see Jesus present in the Blessed Sacrament every Sunday, yet do we really recognize Him? Do we welcome Him as Messiah? Or do we simply add Mass to the checklist of things we need to accomplish each week?

No one will announce it. What’s ironic about this statement is that the Kingdom of God was announced. Throughout Luke, there is a consistent theme of revelation of Christ’s identity as Messiah.

Before His birth, John leaps in his mother’s womb. At His birth, angels and shepherds welcome their King. When Jesus is presented in the temple, Simeon and Anna immediately rejoice that they have seen the Messiah. As a youth, Jesus preaches with wisdom and authority to temple elders. And perhaps most obvious of all, God Himself announces to the world that Jesus is His Son upon HisBaptism.

This isn’t the Gospel of Mark where Jesus commands all who see His good works to keep quiet. Jesus is making it all pretty clear in the Gospel of Luke; He’s something special.

So why the confusion?

The Kingdom of God is among you. Perhaps the reasonthey couldn’t recognize Jesus was because He was right under their noses. He was human, walking among them. If He were a snake, He would’ve bitten them.

Jesus’ plan of salvation was not conventional. He didn’t arrive with earthly glory. He was no King or political leader. He didn’t seem like One to liberate or save. He was not the Messiah they had expected.

He was just a baby in a manger, a son of a carpenter, a kid from Nazareth. Nothing special, right?

But that’s the paradox. Jesus, in becoming so “unspecial,” revealed how special He truly He is. Stars obey Him. Everything in the Universe submits to His authority. Yet He humbled Himself to be born as a poor human being, a baby in a manger. He took on appearance of a man, and “humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:8).

God’s beloved children waited anxiously for a Savior, ignoring their salvation unfolding right before their eyes.

We’re not much different today. Christ has paid the price. He has shown us His love. There is nothing He needs to prove to us. But still, we question. We doubt. We give Him ultimatums and deadlines, demands and interrogations. As if He doesn’t love us immensely. As if He didn’t have our name specifically in mind as He endured death on a cross.

Where is God and His Kingdom, we ask. As if angels, saints, and God Himself are not present fully before our eyes each time we behold the Blessed Sacrament in the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

When will the Kingdom of God arrive? It’s already here. Jesus is speaking to us as much as He is to the Pharisees.

Something Special. Jesus is right under our noses, today as much as thousands of years ago. The effect of His saving acts, His Incarnation, Death, and Resurrection, are a reality in our lives.

The tabernacles of our churches proclaim His Passion. The joy in our hearts proclaims His defeat of death. And the Mystical Body of Christ proclaims the love He shows us.

Christ humbled Himself so we could see His love for us. Even when we failed to realize His glory, He was patient with us. “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand,” He reassured us (John 13:7).

If Jesus were a snake, He would’ve bitten us. But instead, He died for us. 

Faith Noah was valedictorian of her graduating class at Ursuline Academy and is currently a freshman at Vanderbilt University.  When she is not studying, she blogs for LIFETEEN and helps out as a team leader at a local parish.