HAS NOWHERE TO REST HIS HEAD

Jb 9,1-12.14-16; Ps 87; Lk 9,57-62
3 OCTOBER

Sometimes it is necessary to read the Gospel using examples that are too material, but which express in fullness of truth what is hidden in every Word of Jesus the Lord. A man enters a shop. He buys an item. Once he has paid the corresponding price, the object is his and can use it according to his will. It no longer belongs to the owner of before. God comes to the store of our lives, asks that we sell him our lives. He does not pay us today, at the moment of the sale. He will pay us at the moment of our entry into eternity. Even if on earth he gives us a hundred times as much as we have left. From the moment when our life is sold to Him, it no longer belongs to us. He can use it as he likes according to his will. After all, even the Alliance, both the Old and the New one, is a sale. God sells us all his eternal life, we sell him the life of time. He gives us himself for eternity. We give him all of us so that he can continue his mission of salvation and redemption on our earth, through our body.

A man asks to “sell himself” to Christ Jesus. The Lord is honest with him. He tells him what the conditions are. If you sell yourself, not only the body must sell, but also the soul, the spirit, the will, the thoughts, every desire and aspiration. If you sold everything, nothing more belongs to you. Everything is of my Father. He will be your thought and He will be your will. Obedience to his voice will have to be perfect, always and in every command. Observe the Son of man. He gave his whole life to the Father. Nothing that is on earth belongs to him, not even a nest or a den or a stone on which to rest the head. Here the reference is to Jacob. Of him it is expressly said that after a long journey, in the evening he takes a stone and uses it as a pillow. At least he had something.

Jacob departed from Beer-sheba and proceeded toward Haran. When he came upon a certain shrine, as the sun had already set, he stopped there for the night. Taking one of the stones at the shrine, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep at that spot. Then he had a dream: a stairway rested on the ground, with its top reaching to the heavens; and God’s messengers were going up and down on it. And there was the LORD standing beside him and saying: “I, the Lord, am the God of your forefather Abraham and the God of Isaac; the land on which you are lying I will give to you and your descendants. These shall be as plentiful as the dust of the earth, and through them you shall spread out east and west, north and south. In you and your descendants all the nations of the earth shall find blessing. Know that I am with you; I will protect you wherever you go, and bring you back to this land. I will never leave you until I have done what I promised you.” When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he exclaimed, “Truly, the LORD is in this spot, although I did not know it!” In solemn wonder he cried out: “How awesome is this shrine! This is nothing else but an abode of God, and that is the gateway to heaven!” Early the next morning Jacob took the stone that he had put under his head, set it up as a memorial stone, and poured oil on top of it. He called that site Bethel, whereas the former name of the town had been Luz. (Gen 28,10-19).

The Son of man only on the cross might lean his head and in the sepulchre. the Father has not granted him other things on earth and he might not have anything else. He is entirely and only of his Father.

As they were proceeding on their journey someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus answered him, “Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.” And to another he said, “Follow me.” But he replied, “(Lord,) let me go first and bury my father.” But he answered him, “Let the dead bury their dead. But you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” And another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but first let me say farewell to my family at home.” (To him) Jesus said, “No one who sets a hand to the plough and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God.”

The same conditions apply to every other that is called or offered to Christ for the building up of the kingdom of God, to be one of his missionaries. The rule is one and it is for everyone: the “sale” to Christ of one’s life. Everything is sold and nothing belongs to us anymore.

Virgin Servant of the Lord, Angels and Saints ensure that every Christian ise only of Christ.