“Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You something to drink? When did we see You a stranger and invite You in or needing clothes and clothe You? When did we see You sick or in prison and go to visit You?’ The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me’” (Matthew 25:37-40)
Normally in the years when this gospel appears on Last Judgment Sunday, we search for instances when any of the above situations offers us an opportunity to bond with the heavenly King, Jesus Christ. This year with the tragic earthquake still in recent memory, Haiti’s plight confronts the globe with overwhelming possibilities to meet Him on an ongoing basis. Who could have suspected that Christ was in Haiti all along—before, during and after the earthquake? Fools have claimed that the Haitians brought it on themselves, like the Chinese proverb: “The bee stings the tear-stained cheek.” How insensitive and wrongheaded a comment, especially from some Christian leaders. Yes, He was there before the tragedy among the missionaries, teachers and medical personnel intent on raising the level of those trapped in the chain of poverty.
Our Lord Jesus was there when the earthquake struck Port au Prince, crushing the poorly constructed building, apartments and houses. “I was in prison,” He said. Imprisoned under the bricks, metal and rubble, each person brought up alive has been a glorious triumph for the spirit of life that will not be crushed and snuffed out as long as the Holy Spirit within those under the debris or motivating those above ground continued struggling valiantly to excavate them. Here is human nature at its best. He was there with the dogs trained to sniff out human flesh, alive or otherwise.
“I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink.” He was and still is there with those transporting precious water to the thirsty thousands on the verge of death. “I was hungry and you fed Me.” He is there wherever food supplies are provided, distributed and grasped by the many hungry. He is there among all the military from our own nation and elsewhere, in a valiant effort to create order among the chaotic and frantic appeals from the survivors of the disaster. He is there among the physicians, nurses and medical personnel who are strained to their limits with exhaustion, fighting the need for rest and sleep, their mental, emotional and physical tolerance near the breaking point.
“I was a stranger.” He is there with the newly-created families comprised of willing foster parents eager to adopt the infants and children left orphans when their parents perished in the catastrophe. He is there among those throughout the world who so generously provided money spontaneously collected through organizations and institutions, even by the telethon appeals by performers, athletes and other public figures, urging viewers to a generosity for which Americans are known.
God is offering through this natural disaster to all nations and people an opportunity to realize and release the goodness and compassion inherent in all created in the image of God, Christians first of all who are baptized into the Son of God who became a human being in order to explain and to manifest the divine energy latent within our souls. Not just Christians, but every human being of all faiths and those without belief in a divine being, or at least not cognizant of such awareness. The latter, even agnostics of self-styled atheists, have contributed money or themselves in service to the pathos of a poverty-stricken country made all the worse by the earthquake that afflicted their land and people.