Advent: I'll Be Home for Christmas

The very fact that I've been away from this blog so long might suggest something about the season of life that I'm in right now. It's busy. I feel unmotivated at times. There are continued disciplines in prayer and scripture reading, but that doesn't always mean that I feel like I'm growing. 

But recently I had the great joy to have one of my close friends spend the week with me and true I had work during the day and those responsibilities to think about but in the evenings he blessed me with wonderful life-giving conversation. 

We talked about many things, spiritual and not, but what of the discussions that really struck me was this idea that everyone is looking for HOME, whatever that means. And often Christians are looking for that within the church community. They are looking for a place to feel same, a place to be poured into, a place to call their own and be their self.

If we take it a step further still, that's ultimately what Jesus did for all of humanity. Here He was fully God and he left his Heavenly Home, humbled himself and came to earth as this humble baby in a lowly manger stall in Bethlehem. Do we even understand how drastic a change this is? Have we gotten into our heads what this means?

He left his perfect home where he had divine fellowship and came to our broken world to bring home to us now. If we look at his ministry years that's really what he was doing. Getting to know people. Teaching them. Healing them. Breaking bread with them in their homes. And it didn't matter what kind of home they had before. He was looking to bring them the true and everlasting eternal home that comes with the Good News of the Gospel. 

That home has come but it is also promised for eternity! Thus, it seems obvious that as Christians we are called in a sense to make home on earth for other people. Developing Christ-centered communities with others so that we can bring others in to find belonging, hope, and ultimately renewal through the very fact that they too can have a relationship with the God of the Universe. 

My very last day of work before Christmas I was walking down the street and it hit me. Taken in this light, "I'll Be Home for Christmas" is really a song of Advent. Because we are waiting expectantly to be taken home by our Heavenly Father but He has also graciously provided home to us now through his son. That is something that we can plan on and it won't be in our dreams. 

Merry Christmas to all!

All the Glory to Him.