We once had surprise visitors and went through our monthly food budget in one week. Martha understands the way unscheduled visits can bring pressure.

Imagine instead a visitor who provides food for you. After losing her husband and sons in a foreign land, Naomi heard the Lord had visited his people and given them food. Psalm 65 proclaims that the Lord visits the earth, waters it, greatly enriches it, and provides grain.

Now imagine a visitor who not only feeds you but fills you with joy and loves you without limit. Further imagine this perfect visitor not coming to your home but coming to you when you have lost everything through your own folly. You are homeless, shivering in a dangerous night, but this visitor brings light, warmth, love, friendship, and hope. Zephaniah 2:7 prophesies, “The Lord their God will visit them and restore their fortunes.”

Unless you understand the strong and tender way the word “visit” is used in the Bible you don’t understand the joy of Christmas. 

In Exodus 3, God visits his people and brings them out slavery to a land flowing with milk and honey. According to Jeremiah 29:10, God’s people were in exile until the Lord visited them. In Luke 7:16, a widow lost her only son and, with him, her livelihood, status, and hope. When Jesus raised that son from death, the people said, “God has visited his people.”

The God who put the whirling galaxies in place came to visit, causing the father of John the Baptist to rejoice:

Blessed is the Lord God of Israel,
For He has visited and redeemed His people . . .
Through the tender mercy of our God,
With which the Dayspring from on high has visited us;
To give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death,
To guide our feet into the way of peace.

Jesus Christ visited this earth, but that is not the end of the story. He promised he will visit again. On his first visit, he came in lowliness: born in a stable, sleeping on the ground, touching lepers, washing feet, dying for our sins.  

But he conquered sin and death and rose from the grave. On his next visit, he will come in majesty and power.  

The prophets warn, “And in an instant, suddenly, you will be visited by the Lord of hosts with the thunder and with earthquake and great noise, with a whirlwind and tempest, and the flame of a devouring fire.”

We who have welcomed him on his first visit, however, will be welcomed by him on his second visit to enter the perfect home he is preparing for us. If we prepare him room now, he will prepare us room forever.

Joy to the world; the Lord is come;
Let Earth receive her King;
Let ev’ry heart prepare him room