What do you suppose the biblical word “Prophet” means?  . . . A great many people, because they are ill taught by people who did not learn to read Holy Scripture carefully; . . . a great many people would answer my question by saying that a prophet is someone who predicts the future.  . . . But that is simply not true.  . . . A Prophet is someone whose vocation . . . who has been called by God; . . . a Prophet is someone whose vocation is to speak on God’s behalf.

    For instance, during a particularly bad famine that affected a large part of the Middle East, the Lord God Almighty once instructed the Prophet Elijah to go to a certain impoverished widow in the town of Zarephath and instruct her to feed him during his stay there.  . . . Obediently, Elijah does as the Lord God instructs, and he tells the widow of Zarephath what God desires for her to do.  . . . She looks at him in utter astonishment, and says to Elijah,

I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar and a little oil in a cruse; [and I am going just now to] prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat of it and die.

. . . The impoverished widow had come to the end of her rope.  When she met Elijah she was on her way to make a last small feast for herself and her son before they began the long, slow descent into death by starvation.  She cannot possibly do what this Israelite holy man requires of her.  . . . But Elijah says,

Fear not, . . . for thus says the Lord the God of Israel, “The jar of meal shall not be spent, and the cruse of oil shall not fail . . .

And sure enough, . . . it happened just as the Prophet Elijah reported that the Lord God Almighty promised it would happen:  the widow fed herself and her son and Elijah for “many days,” Holy Scripture says, . . . and “the jar of meal was not spent,” (we read in the First Book of Kings, Chapter Seventeen, Verse Sixteen); “the jar of meal was not spent, neither did the cruse of oil fail according to the word of the Lord which He spake by Elijah.”

    A Prophet speaks on God’s behalf.  . . . But not all of us understand that.  In fact, it is human nature to become so fixed on what we want from God (and, perhaps, what God has failed to give us) . . . that we do not recognize the mercies of God that come to us even if a Prophet should pronounce them.  . . . And that may have been the case with the widow of Zarephath.  Detesting her widowhood and poverty so much, . . . she is not grateful for the jar of meal that is not spent nor the cruse of oil that does not fail, but grumbles, instead, about the fact that God has given her another mouth to feed and that her culinary supplies are in a perilous state.  . . . This may be the sin to which the widow refers, in this morning’s Old Testament Lesson, as she clutches her comatose son to her bosom.

    In response to her lament, Elijah the Prophet says nothing.  Elijah the Prophet says nothing because God has said nothing.  . . . The Lord God Almighty is often silent when we are not disposed to listen.  . . . But Elijah the man; . . . Elijah the man of Israel, son of a sacred covenant; . . . Elijah the son of God takes the widow’s son and intercedes to God on the widow’s behalf,

O Lord my God, [Elijah prays] hast thou brought calamity even upon the widow?  . . . O Lord my God, let this child’s soul come into him . . .

And God grants Elijah’s request.  . . . God didn’t have to; . . . in fact, perhaps the Lord God Almighty disappointed the widow’s son, . . . having shown him the vision of a glorious country . . . and then snatching it away.  But God grants Elijah’s request and restores the child’s soul to him; . . . God grants Elijah’s request in order to make a point to the widow; . . . and the point God wishes to make, Holy Scripture tells us, is to open the eyes of the widow of Zarephath to see that Elijah is “a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in [his] mouth is the truth.”  . . . The point God wishes to make to the widow of Zarephath is that the Lord God Almighty is Present to the widow and her son; . . . the Lord God Almighty is present to the widow and her son and visits them with His blessings even in their poverty; . . . that even though God’s Presence changes nothing, . . . everything is different.

    . . . Which brings us to the Gospel appointed for today.  . . . In Saint Luke’s account, we hear of another widow, . . . a widow of the city of Nain.  . . . We encounter her as she walks behind her son’s funeral procession.  Her only son has died, and she is in great distress; for, while a large crowd is with her now, . . . they will soon desert her.  Her friends will desert her because there is no system of entitlements in first century Middle Eastern society, . . . so every family must look out for itself.  . . . If a widow has no family, . . . she is in deep trouble; for, her friends and neighbors, while having great sympathy; . . . her friends and neighbors will not provide for her; . . . they cannot; . . . it puts their own families at risk.  . . . Recognizing this, Jesus stops the funeral procession, . . . and He says to the dead man, “Young man, I say to you arise.”  . . . And the dead man sits up, Luke tells us; . . . the young man sits up, and Jesus brings him, now living, to his mother.  . . . And the eyes of everyone there are opened, and, just like the widow of Zarephath, they declare, “A great prophet has arisen among us; . . . God has visited his people!”

    Saint Luke tells us about that incident near the city of Nain; . . . the Word of God speaks to us by way of Saint Luke’s Gospel in order to remind us of the truth.  For, Jesus is, indeed, a prophet, because from His lips comes the Word of God.  But Jesus is not simply a man, like Elijah, who has received a divine call to speak the Word of God.  Jesus is the Word of God.  God Himself has visited His people!  . . . God Himself, in the Person of the Incarnate Word . . . the Word made Flesh; . . . the Second Person of the Trinity enfleshed with our humanity and ascended into Heaven (having redeemed us from Sin); . . . ascended into Heaven so as to be eternally Present to us . . . in all times and in all places, especially in the Sacrament of His Body and Blood; . . . the Lord God Almighty Himself, in the Person of Christ Jesus, has visited us . . . and perpetually visits us.  . . . We are not so far from the festivities and hope and promises of Easter that we should forget that the Risen Jesus is continually Present to us with His blessings, . . . even when it seems as if God has not given us what we want.

    It is a mistake, Holy Scripture teaches us today; . . . it is a mistake to so fix our hearts upon what we want from God . . . or upon what God has failed to give us . . . as to become blind to His blessings.  . . . Because even though the continual Presence of Jesus may change nothing we are aware of or notice; . . . even though the Presence of Jesus in our lives may change nothing, . . . everything is different.