Home Sweet Home
“Home” holds a powerful influence over most of us humans.
Many of us have fond memories of a place and people and time when we felt that
we were truly “home”. My Mother-in-law was
twelve years old when she and her family left their home in Poland and came to the United States for a better life. My Mother-in-law loved America but her mother never stopped being
homesick for Poland ,
her beloved homeland. Her mother would
tell her that just one day in Poland
was better than a year in the United
States . And I have heard that there are many
other foreign born Americans who have felt that same homesickness.
We all need to have a place where we feel we belong. A place that fits us and we can be our true
selves! So often in our minds we remember
home and family as nearly perfect. And
then when we return “home,” the real place and real family can never quite measure
up to our longings and we come away with a sense of loss. We sometimes have a similar experience around
Christmastime or Thanksgiving. We expect
the holiday dinner and the gathering of family to be nearly perfect – a special
time glowing with warmth and joy and comfort. But often we feel let down by imperfect
families and imperfect celebrations, since these holidays are crushed under the
weight of our impossible expectations.
C.S. Lewis, the famous Christian writer called this longing
for a near perfect family home a “spiritual homesickness”. He writes that our longing to be reunited
with something in the universe from which we feel cut off is the truest index
of our real situation. (C.S. Lewis’ “The
Weight of Glory” p. 28.) Lewis believed
that the reason why humans often feel like exiles is because we really are
exiles!
We read in the Bible that Adam and Eve were banished from
their glorious home - the Garden of Eden. Our first parents were the first
exiles from their true home. (Genesis 3) And they never could forget all they
had lost! They never could stop mourning
that home that had once been theirs. Have
we, their children inherited those traits of mourning that illusive homeland-
that paradise lost? Is the forgotten
memory still in our DNA? We feel
homesick for something more because we aren’t really “home” and there is
something more! Could there be a trace
of the larger story down in our souls?
The very first story in the Bible tells us that we were
created by God to live in the luxurious garden of God .
(Genesis 2) Adam and Eve started out in
the Garden of Eden- a paradise where there was no disease and no death or
parting from loved ones. Animals
frolicked throughout the Garden -the lions playing with the lambs- and no
killing or fighting anywhere. Living
rivers babbled through this paradise and luscious fruits and vegetables grew in
abundance. The mysterious Tree of Life grew in the middle of the garden and Scripture
says that eating the spiritual fruit from this tree would nourish a person with
eternal life! (Gen; 3:22) God was in
this place and Adam and Eve walked and talked with Him and enjoyed love and life-
the good life. This was our original home, the home beyond our imaginations
that was created and sustained for us humans.
God was the “Father” of that original homeland. And He only asked one thing of our first
parents – that they not eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. But our first parents wanted to do their own
thing, be their own god – and live without God’s interference. And it didn’t take long for Eve to disobey God
and eat from this one forbidden tree and persuade Adam to eat from it also. Their
disobedience caused them to fall from grace.
They soon became alienated from God and Scripture says that they were
banished from the garden so that they would not eat the fruit of that
mysterious Tree of Life and live forever in their sins. (Gen.3:22)
Living forever in sin in this fallen state would have been a terrible
fate worse than death and God saved them from that.
Adam and Eve were
driven out of the Garden of Eden as exiles.
And it seems their children - the human race - have been wandering as
spiritual exiles ever since. Scripture
says we inherit Adams ’ nature to sin and we
need help. We have been living in a world that no longer fits our deepest
longings. We experience endless
frustrations. Often our hopes and dreams
and relationships crumble in our hands.
We live in a fallen world and are subject to pain, disease and death.
Adam and Eve’s son, Cain restlessly wandered the earth
because he murdered Abel, his brother.
And later Jacob had to leave his home and live in exile for years
because he cheated his father and brother.
And then the Israelites were exiled away in Egypt as slaves until God through
Moses led them back home. And later the
nation of Israel was exiled
again and taken to Babylon
by King Nebuchadnezzar. When we read
Biblical history we find story after story containing the patterns of
exile. It seems we humans are all cut
out of the loop and unsuccessfully trying to come home but never making it.
Humans aren’t just broken on the outside but we are broken on
the inside too. We are broken with selfishness
and conflicts within our hearts as well as by battles with neighbors and
friends. We are mired in pride and
sickness and sin and we aren’t able to fix ourselves. An impossible mess! We
need a radical change in our very nature to be able to go back “home.”
So God promised humankind over and over again throughout His
Word that He would send a Savior – a Messiah- who would bring us back
home. And all of the prophets prophesied that God is not only our Creator
but He will also be our Redeemer. This Redeemer – this Tree of Life- will not
only give us a new nature so we can go and fit in back home but He will also
redeem the fallen natural world and make it new. The prophets promised that God
loves and cares and would send this Savior – this Redeemer- that would bring us
back home – if we want to be brought back home. We aren’t there yet, but we
have this promise – this redefining hope!
The people of Israel were waiting for their
Messiah, the king who would redeem them but they were looking for a different
kind of a messiah or savior than the one God had promised. They were looking for a messiah of great
military strength and political power. They wanted a messiah who would
overthrow Rome
and then they would be free to run their own lives.
When Jesus appeared and declared that he was bringing them
“the kingdom of God ” (Mark 1:15) the people weren’t sure
because he didn’t fit their expectations of a mighty warrior. Jesus had not come to deliver Israel from political
oppression, but He had come to save all of us from evil and sin and death
itself. He broke the power of death
through his death and resurrection.
(Hebrews 2:14) And He has won the
victory over the forces of death that keep the world from being our true home.
Someday He will return to make that victory complete.
We read in Isaiah: “Your God will come…he will come to save
you. Then will the eyes of the blind be
opened and the ears of the deaf be unstopped.
Then will the lame leap like a deer and the mute tongue shout for
joy. The ransomed of the Lord will
return, they will enter Zion
with singing. Everlasting joy will crown
their heads. Gladness and joy will
overtake them, and sorrow and signing will flee away.” (Isaiah 35)
The New Jerusalem, the City of God will come down out of heaven to fill the
earth. (Revelation 21-22) Scripture says that the presence of God will
be in this city, and also the Tree of Life, whose leaves now will work to be
“the healing of the nations.” (Revelations
22:2) At the end of history the whole
earth has become the Garden
of God again! Death and
sin and suffering are gone. There will
be no more crying or pain or war because “the old order of things has passed
away” (Revelations 21:4)
We will all be eating and drinking and embracing and
laughing and dancing in the kingdom
of God . And the lion will
lay down with the lamb. Scripture says that it will be better than we can ever
imagine. Jesus will make the new world
our perfect home again. And we will no
longer be living “east of Eden ,”
always wandering and never arriving. We
will finally be home! It doesn’t get any
better than that!
Many of the thoughts and scriptures in this blog were taken
from Timothy Keller’s book The Prodigal God chapter 6
“Redefining Hope” pp. 100-117
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