There are so many times in our life, where our Lord tries to speak or communicate to us, but we are often too busy to listen. The noise and pace of our lives are sometimes too much for us to be able to hear His words. But every so often, when we are finally able to quiet our minds, and enter into the stillness of prayer, the whisper of His voice can become barely audible. When our hearts are ready to listen, He finds ways to tell us exactly what we need to know.
This week, at least in my own personal experience, was no different. While I was preparing for today’s homily on the Gospel this morning, there was a random scripture verse that kept coming up in my readings; one that I had never given much thought to in the past. I first heard it referenced in a joke about a new pastor who wanted to go to visit the homes of his new parishioners, in order to introduce himself. When he went to one of the houses, he seemed to think that after knock at the door, he heard some rustling around the house, but no one came to greet him. So he took out his business card and wrote “Revelation 3:20” on the back of it, and stuck it in the door.
The following Sunday, the pastor found his business card sitting in the offering plate, with the message “Genesis 3:10” written on it. He looked up the two verses in the bible, and let out a chuckle: Revelation 3:20 begins: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock”. Genesis 3:10 reads: “I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid for I was naked”
When I heard this joke, I laughed it off and moved on. The very next day however, Revelation 3:20 came up again when I was reading through the life and homilies of St. Macarius, the great monastic who we commemorate today. The verse came up again on a random podcast on Ancient Faith Radio. Finally, on Thursday, right about the time that I start to gather my thoughts about the homily for Sunday, the verse once again showed itself in the book “Remember Thy First Love” by Fr. Zacharias.
One random verse, that is never sang or read publicly in the Liturgical Services of the Church, coming from 4 completely unrelated sources. I am not sure what will happen to me if I don’t speak to you about this verse, and how it relates to both the Gospel reading we just heard, or to our own spiritual lives!
I gave you the beginning of the verse, now let me give you the rest of it. Revelation 3:20 reads: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come into him and dine with him, and he with Me.”
Fr. Zacharias speaks about how our Lord is continually knocking at the door of man’s heart, waiting for us to freely open the door to Him: “Then he enters, loaded with His gifts of grace and all His incomparable riches, and makes a feast with man, and finally concludes an alliance with him…for God has had His mind set on man from all eternity.”
At every moment in our lives, even right this moment, our Lord stands at the door, waiting for us to let Him in. The way that we crack the door is by practicing some small measure of virtue in order to allow Christ the opportunity to open our hearts the rest of the way.
We see this happening throughout all of the Gospels. In the next few weeks, in what the Church calls the Pre-Lenten Sundays, we will hear about the virtues that were shown by people whose doors were completely shut to Christ:
+Zacchaeus, the tax collector, opened his door by charity and righting the wrongs that he had done to others.
+The Publican in the temple, while standing in the shadow of the proud Pharisee who had lived according to the law, stood in the corner beating his breast at the ways that he had failed to live a Godly way of life. He opened the door of his heart with a showing of extreme humility.
+The Prodigal Son, after spending time eating with the pigs in the midst of the world, “came to himself”, returned to his father, and opened the door of his heart through repentance.
In the Gospel reading for today, we heard the story of the blind man whose name was Bartimaeus. His entire life, he was never able to see the beauty of the sunrise, or the glow of the moon and the stars. He sat on the corner of the street, completely broken…begging for money so that he could simply survive the day. Then, with his heightened sense of sound, Bartimaeus one day hears and feels the rushing of the feet of the crowd who is drawing near to Jesus. With one sentence, he opens the door of his heart with the virtues of faith and hope: “Son of David…Have Mercy on Me!”
Our Lord, who only needed that small opening to get through the door, replied: “Receive your sight, your faith (that small virtue that allowed me to come into your life), has made you well.”
Brothers and Sisters in Christ, our Lord beckons to us each day, repeating those words: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock...” He has been seeking us from the very beginning. The first question posed in the entire bible, right after mankind had turned their back on God and closed the door of their hearts, are the words: “Where are you?” This is the question that is posed to all of us today. We have a tremendous opportunity, each and every day, to crack the door open through our virtues.
Be vigilant! We can no longer afford to ignore the Lazarus on our doorstep. We can no longer have excuses for why we have no time to pray, or why we cannot come to Church. Our Lord is constantly seeking after us, waiting to fill our lives with Hope, Light, and True Life! All we need to do is answer the door.