Home for the Holidays?

The idea of Home has always fascinated me, mostly because I never had one growing up.  Yeah, we had a house but you were never safe, there was no peace or security or welcome...only shame and fear and anger.  I never knew any different and thought that was 'normal,' that all families and homes were like that; it certainly made for a bleak view of the future.  Since, I have learned better, and happily most people aren't currently renting an apartment in suburban Hell.  The opening scenes of C.S. Lewis's 'The Great Divorce' portraying just that are eerily similar but that's a whole other post.  Of course I had that longing we all have, especially this time of year, for something more than we can yet comprehend, that we are homeless wanderers far from our native heath, a hearth we have never yet seen.  This little article is a nice summation of Homes, earthly and otherwise and was a timely reminder for this season above all others when we yearn most for Home.  Here's a great piece on families, genetic and otherwise this Holiday season.

The people of occupied Israel, languishing under Roman rule some two millennia ago also yearned for Home, for a promised Conqueror and Prince of the line of David to overthrow their enemies and restore a King to Israel.  Instead they got a baby, so poor he didn't even have a proper roof over his head, 'his bed a cattle stall.'  Apparently our ideas of a proper Home and God's are quite different, for later Jesus goes on to say the birds and foxes have homes, but He has no place to lay His head, not even an ox stall.  So maybe Home isn't a physical place, at least not yet.  I had a physical place but it sure wasn't home.  So what is it?

Enter the Kingdom of God.  Christ came to establish His Kingdom, here on earth, but He didn't conquer Kingdoms at His first Advent, what He did was conquer hearts.  There will be citizens of that Kingdom drawn from every people, tribe, and tongue.  Fancy a country without geographical borders or a historical timeline but alive and extant wherever and whenever its people call home!  And such a Home, for here there is true peace and joy and love, no matter what happens in the outer world, even if your home is a cattle stall.  So lonely pilgrim, weary wanderer, you have a country, you have a Home, you need only open the door and step within!