“The Kingdom is coming but the Kingdom is here. That’s why we’re homesick but it’s also why we might as well get busy planting.”
-Andrew Peterson, Adorning the Dark
This lap around the sun has been full. There have been moments of the good, the challenging, the beautiful, the exciting and the ordinary. What has our year looked like?
Scott continues to work at a powder coating plant. Rachael works with an anti-human trafficking organization as the Director of Operations and Culture. And she has resumed classes at a local college working towards a MBA to better equip her to serve in the non-profit sector. Emma (6th grade) played field hockey throughout the fall. She continually demonstrates courage in the face of difficult circumstances. Wesley (3rd grade) has cultivated an insatiable appetite for learning and reading and sports as he prepares for winter league basketball. Declan (Kindergarten) is our inquisitive, goofy, incessant talker. We are so proud of who our kids are and who they are becoming. At recent parent-teacher conferences, all of the teachers spoke so highly of them and how they always care for each other and others.
We became members of a Lutheran church. The kids were baptized, and we began leading a group of parents of elementary age children and pre-teens as we all are working to make sense of this whole parenting thing in a way that bears witness to what following Christ looks like.
It’s been 4 years since Pennsylvania became our home. It feels strange to call it that; “home.” Our journey has consisted of navigating deep dark forests and valleys and emerging onto sun filled meadows surrounded by mountainous vistas. Through it all, Christ has and continues to sojourn with us and care for us. And there are moments when we have felt and do feel homesick. I think we all feel this homesickness for the place, the people, the community where we feel fully known and cared for. Some seasons this feeling may be more pronounced. Other times we may feel settled.
The idea of home is shaped by the events and people that have impacted our lives for better and for worse. Thus it shapes us. Home can be something that you long for, or something that you work hard to place as many miles as possible between it and where and who you are now. It can be a place where you feel known or where you have become a stranger.
As we have wrestled with this, one thing resonates through our bones that gives immense comfort and hope as we cultivate our place and people. That is, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” That same Word, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, continues to sojourn with us by His Spirit, when home feels close and when it feels distant. Like Abraham, the disciples, and even Bilbo Baggins, we are beckoned to step away from the home we think we know to embark on a grand adventure to discover what home truly means.
Looking towards the fullness of what the home is that Christ offers us, what sustains us presently? Where do we go when we feel homesick? How do we cultivate a home in this temporary residence? Maybe you even doubt that this Christ-like home is to be good to be true. Can we see it, can we experience it in the present?
I believe that in God’s mercy, it encounters us when we gather together around his table where we are nourished with the bread and wine, his body broken for us and and his blood shed for us. He prepares a meal for us. A foretaste of the feast to come. I hear it when we proclaim Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. I hear it when we pray how our Lord taught us how to pray. I see it in the sacrament of baptism in which we are raised to new life and welcomed into a new family, the family of God, as a beloved son or daughter.
And we also cultivate this spiritual home through our physical practices and needs, as we look to the needs of others. This happens when we share our time, our resources, our presence, opening our doors and sharing food and drink, with those whom God has brought across our path.
I see it in the reunion of dear friends and loved ones. When someone at work asks, “hey are you ok?” I’ve experienced it at our CrossFit gym with music blaring and everyone pushing and encouraging each other through the workout. I’ve experienced this in the office of a trusted therapist who sojourns with you as you unpack all of the stuff of life and chart a better way forward.
But I also know the pain of not having a place to lay your head. This sense of belonging is something inherent within each of us. We all carry the wounds and scars of being misunderstood, criticized, not heard, outright rejected, even betrayed. This is compounded when major life transitions are forced upon us leaving us disoriented and bewildered as we seek to rebuild. Even though we experience such disheartening things, I am a firm believer that God has a profound way of encountering us, joining us in our sojourn in our grief and pain, always through the most unexpected of ways.
I find glimpses of home in a deep conversation and the sharing of a meal. In spending time in laughter and joy with family, even cherished pets. Entering into someone else's grief and sharing in their pain. In a sunrise, sunset, or moon lit night, even in storms. I've experienced it while traveling. I can sense it with the coming of spring or when the trees are set ablaze in autumn or upon the freshly fallen snow at daybreak. There is so much beauty and goodness in this world, because God is good and committed to completing his redemptive work. And this gives me a sure hope in what lies ahead.
We all long to see Christ face to face. We long to step foot into the Narnia within Narnia. or onto the shores of the Gray Havens. We long for that peace, the tangible stillness where we can finally breathe. We long to be reunited with those who have gone before. We long for the toil to reach its end. We long to be fully known. I believe this is where all of this life is headed. To find its end in God when he he fully makes his home with us
And herein lies the good news. I, you, we, are not alone. We have each other. And we have someone who sojourns with us. We are not without hope for Christ came not only to stand in our stead so that we can be forgiven and raised to new life, but to defeat death through his resurrection and demonstrate his commitment to making all things new.
That is the beauty of this season. We reflect upon the Word dwelling with us. Making his home with us. The baby who in the manger was upholding the universe by the word of his power, is the same who will return to lead us home.
