On days late in August, I would sometimes wake up and find our lawn covered front and back with a flocks of Canadian Geese. They were on their way south for winter, and we were never happy to see each other. They foretold winter and I was a possible danger whose presence meant the posting of guards who kept me at a respectable distance which allowed the flock to graze the grass in peace.

Like the seasons, migration and homing one of the ways God wisely orders our world: Salmon return to their stream of origin. Elephants, it is said, return to their birthplace to die. Grateful alumni return to the hallowed halls of their education to reminiscence and consider endowing their alma mater with funds for a building, a chair, or scholarship. Family comes home for the holidays.

Dorothy was right: There is no place like home.

If we can get there.

Adam and Eve were both evicted from our first home, never to return. Abraham left his home far behind life for a land God would show him. Jacob left home after deceiving his father, only to return under the cloud of a deception spun by his sons. Jesus goes home and is chased out of town. A son leaves home to claim his destiny, and when he returns covered with shame, his father hugs him while his brother refuses his company. Paul walked into God’s house and ends up in prison.

Thomas Wolfe was right: You can’t go home again.

But that’s not the end of the story.

God comes home to us.

In the beginning of his gospel, John writes that the son of God became flesh and made his home with us. In the shadow of the cross, Jesus said that he was going to prepare our place in his Father’s house. While suffering on his cross, Jesus asked a disciple to make a home for his mother. When Paul arrived in Rome, he stayed in his own rented house and gave a gospel welcome to all who came to see him. Exiled and homeless, God gave John a vision of the day when God would forever dwell among his people, so we would be forever at home with God where death, sorrow, and pain are no more.

St. Augustine was right: Our heart is restless until we rest in God.

Family is always found when our home is with Christ.

 

Pastor Skip