Resurrection Lutheran Church, St Catharines

The Lord visits. It has been the common practice in making funeral arrangements to allow a time for the visitation. The visitation is that time appointed for friends and relatives to visit the family of the one who has died in order to offer their condolences and support, and to share memories and sorrows and faith. The shape of this formal visitation has changed over time and I see it changing in our day.

 

I have seen photographs from when my great-grandparents died, showing the body of the deceased in its coffin, respectfully placed in the family home for a time before the funeral service. And those who wished to extend their sympathies would go to the family home and do so there.

 

When there were more and more visitors expected, it became common to make use of a funeral home, a larger house that could accommodate the increased number of visitors and relieve the immediate family from hosting in their time of grief. For the last two generations, then, appointed hours of visitation have commonly been scheduled to meet with the family at the funeral home. Many of you know that the expected hours are 2-4 in the afternoon and 7-9 in the evening the day before the funeral service.

 

In our current time, I have noticed and I think that you have also, that quite often the appointed hours of visitation are limited to a brief period before the service at the church. Sometimes the explanation is given that hours of visitation on the days leading up to the church service prove to be too exhausting for the grieving family. And, unfortunately we also see in our day that it is not uncommon for there to be no time of visitation and even no public funeral service, just an announcement that a private graveside service has already taken place.

 

We could point to today’s Gospel reading and note that the funeral procession on its way to the place of burial consisted of a large crowd of people from the city, accompanying the widow to bury her son. We could note that Jesus was not hesitant to approach the mourners in their distress and to join them in showing compassion to the grieving mother. But there is even more to this Gospel than that.

 

Throughout the gospels, we that our God is one of compassion. And we see this in that He visits. He visits the homes of those who are grieving and in distress and sick and even those who are stuck in a life of sin and don’t know how to get out. This is who our God is. This is Jesus, God who came into our world to visit all of us sin-sick, dying, and grieving people.

 

The Bible tells us that when His people were oppressed in slavery in Egypt the LORD visited His people, in order to deliver them from their captivity (Exodus 4:31). And that He did so with mighty signs and wonders to defeat the gods of the Egyptians, overthrow Pharaoh and drown the pursuing army. All the nations came to know that the God of Israel was among His people. He had visited them and relieved their oppression.

 

The Book of Ruth also tells us that when Israel was struck with a famine and Naomi had gone to Moab where her husband and two sons then died, she made plans to return to Israel when she heard that the LORD had visited His people and brought the famine to an end (Ruth 1:6). In her grief and her need she knew that the visitation of the LORD would mean relief and restoration for her.

 

And when John the Baptist was born, his old father Zachariah burst out in a song of prophecy, saying, “Blessed be the LORD God of Israel, for He has visited and redeemed His people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David” (Luke 1:68). This was the bursting forth of Zachariah’s joy that the message of the angel Gabriel was true. Zachariah’s son would prepare the way for God’s visitation to His people in order to redeem them from sin and death.

 

This visitation had already come to the house of Zachariah and Elizabeth before their son was born, when Mary came to visit, bringing with her the Lord God whom she bore in her womb. And John the Baptist leaped for joy with Elizabeth and Elizabeth rejoiced at the coming of God to her. “Why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Luke 1:43).

 

In compassion the Lord comes to visit His people. He sees those who weep in oppression. He sees those who weep in hunger and grief. He sees those who weep barren and lonely. And He saw this widow weeping as her son was carried out to the cemetery, so He approached. This is the very purpose why He had come from His Father to His people.

 

He came to interrupt us in our distress. It may seem quite shocking that as a solemn funeral procession is passing out of the city gates, Jesus does not hesitate to approach the mourners and tell them to stop weeping. He went right up to the coffin and put His hands upon it. The pall bearers had to stop still. It seems that Jesus was quite intent about fulfilling the purpose of His visitation.

 

And why so invasive? Our Lord visits, not only to share in our suffering, or to accompany us through it; He visits not just to remind us that someone cares or to reveal to us His own suffering and sorrow. The Lord visits to save His people, to free them from oppression, to feed their hunger, and to redeem them from sin and death. No other visitor can do that for their family or friends. But the Lord can do that for all, and that is why He came to visit us in the incarnation of Jesus Christ.

 

That is why He interrupted the procession to the burial plot and gave the command to stop weeping. It is why He reached out His hands to touch the coffin and bring the pall bearers to a standstill. It is why He called out to the dead man to arise. It is why the dead man sat up. The Lord comes to visit His people in the Person of Jesus Christ to defeat sin and death, to empty the graves, and to restore lost loved ones to their families.

 

The Lord’s visitation is a shocking interruption. The way that some today have forsaken both visitation and the funeral service at the church, I get the impression that they do indeed find it unwelcome that our time of grief is interrupted by Jesus. Is it not an intrusion that when we are so focused on remembering the departed and celebrating the life now extinguished, that Jesus wants to disrupt our grief and tell us to stop weeping. He wants His words to override our eulogies and His touch on the casket to overshadow our sentiments just as we are about to take our loved one to their place of burial.

 

But the Lord’s interruption becomes a welcome one when we acknowledge that He visits us to free us from the captivity of death and to feed us with His Words of peace and hope and to redeem us from our sins that we might be resurrected with our loved ones to live forever with Him. The Lord visits us in the midst of our funeral rites to give life where there is none. Our remembrances and sentiments and tributes can only bring the departed to mind. They cannot bring them to life. Our eulogies can only highlight what we have lost. They cannot restore to us what is gone.

 

But the Lord’s visitation is all about restoration. He visits in order to restore life, like He did for the dead young man at Nain. He visits to restore us with our loved ones, as He gave the young man back to His mother. He visits to restore to us hope where there is no hope. He visits us to care for us with His compassion and enlivening power, as no other visitor can.

 

Jesus has done this not just for the young man at Nain, and for the daughter of Jairus, and for Lazarus and all who mourned them; He has visited us for the life of the whole world. For Jesus Christ, the only Son of the Father, died upon the cross and was as dead as any mortal man has been. His widowed mother wept as they took His lifeless body down from the cross and He was wrapped in clothes and spices to cover up the stench of death and taken to His place of burial.

 

There was no one to interrupt their procession to Joseph of Arimathea’s family tomb. No one ran up and said, “Do not weep.” No one reached out to touch the Lord’s coffin on that Sabbath eve. Everyone beat their breasts and returned to their own homes. No visitation.

 

But the Lord Jesus Christ arose from the dead without the intervention of anyone. He conquered death and the grave on His own, and so completely crushed them that they no longer have a lasting hold on us. Jesus rose on the third day and gave Himself back to His mother and the whole Church. He restored Himself to them and restored their joy and hope and peace, giving to us all the blessed hope of everlasting life with all we love who have departed in the faith.

 

The Lord Jesus now continues to visit us. He visits us in our greatest times of sorrow and sadness. He comes as an interruption, a disruptor, with the audacity to tell us to stop our weeping. For He comes with life and restoration for us. He comes in His Word to say what no one else can, that all sins are forgiven in His death, and eternal life is open to all through faith in His resurrection.

 

The true importance of visitation hours at the death of loved ones is not so that they might offer their sympathies and condolences, but so that they might witness the visitation of Jesus, who gives hope to those who mourn, and the promise of restoration to those whom death tries to take away. Jesus comes in Word and sacrament and in the ministry of those whom He sends: like the prophets Elijah and Elisha; like the apostles and our pastors; like family members and friends of the faith, whose very presence reminds us that where two or three are gathered, there He is in the midst to visit us with His compassion.