I'll Be Home For Christmas

By an act of faith, Abraham said yes to God’s call to travel to an unknown place that would become his home.

When he left he had no idea where he was going. By an act of faith he lived in the country promised him, lived as a stranger camping in tents. Isaac and Jacob did the same, living under the same promise. Abraham did it by keeping his eye on an unseen city with real, eternal foundations—the City designed and built by God.

By faith, barren Sarah was able to become pregnant, old woman as she was at the time, because she believed the One who made a promise would do what he said. That’s how it happened that from one man’s dead and shriveled loins there are now people numbering into the millions.

Each one of these people of faith died not yet having in hand what was promised, but still believing. How did they do it? They saw it way off in the distance, waved their greeting, and accepted the fact that they were transients in this world. 

People who live this way make it plain that they are looking for their true home. 

If they were homesick for the old country, they could have gone back any time they wanted. But they were after a far better country than that—heaven country. You can see why God is so proud of them, and has a City waiting for them.

-Hebrews 11:8-16 (MSG)

Will you be home for Christmas?  What does coming home represent?  What does Christmas mean?

• Coming home means reconciliation with God or reunion with your family.  
• Coming home means placing your life on the journey towards God.
• Coming home means traveling into the journey towards God.
• Coming home means traveling towards your home in God.
• Coming home means traveling towards your heavenly home with God.

What does Christmas really mean?

• Mass carries with it the idea of taking communion or the eucharist and then going into the world.  
• Going into the world, on the mission of God in Christ.  
• Mass is where we take the eucharist, receiving the blessing of the bread and wine.  
• Thankfulness is expressed.  
• At the dismissal, we go out, in Christ, into the world, carrying God's mission in Christ.

That's 'Mass'.

Christ means Messiah, Anointed One and the Son of God, who is endowed or invested with the authority of God.

Christmas means, 'Christ's Mass'.  The meaning is 'Christ & Eucharist', which means that Christ has come as the blessed gift that we partake of for salvation.  Taking Christ into our lives, who saves us and takes over our lives, transforming us and taking us into his mission; is the whole idea.

What is coming home, going home, finding home or traveling home all about?  We say a person 'went home' to refer to their passing from life, through death, and then into God's presence.

I think that the whole Bible is about finding home and coming there.  God is our home and through Christ we come home.  Coming home means reconciliation with God and reunion with our family.

I think that Abraham and Sarah's story encapsulates the story of the people of God, about our homecoming.

This is what we learn, from Abraham and Sarah; and that can apply to us:

• They left their known home to go to the home God had for them.
• This is the same for all disciples of Jesus.  He calls us to follow him, often away from our 'know homes', to his 'unknown home'.
• Their only map was God.
• Jesus' call to us of, "Follow me", only has in it, us and him.
• Jesus does not tell us where he is taking us.
• God said, "Go out into the unknown", and they obeyed.
• Trusting Jesus, even blindly is discipleship 101.
• When they got there, they lived there as strangers, in portable housing.
• Surprisingly, they did not take over or buy and build.
• The disciple of Jesus is a stranger and sojourner on earth.
• The number one thing is to make a home in God, while living in the world.
• Their home was built on faith before being built with brick and mortar.
• And they taught and trained their children to live the same way.
• Making a home in God, on earth is the task of the disciple.
• The home of our lives becomes the evangelistic door for people to meet God.
• Building the spiritual comes first before building the material.
• The height of spirituality is to find your home and living space in God.
• God gave this couple their child when they were barren and past their prime.
• They conceived what was inconceivable.
• The story of God is making the weak strong, the blind see and the lame walk.
• God takes the people that the world would reject and makes something good out of them.
• God loves to provide, answer prayers and heal us.
• Their faith was such that they were ok with not getting what God promised, yet.
• Instead, they continually grew in their trust and revelation of God's faithfulness.
• We learn that our faith is more about growing in being loved by God and knowing his faithfulness, rather than getting stuff.
• Maturing faith that is 'no matter what faith', that is like Job's.
• They discovered and were transformed into 'heavenly-home-hearted people'.
• On earth, they learned to make heaven their home.
• Serenity, tranquility and contentment were theirs.
• Rather than go back to where they were born and raised, they continually chose God's upward call to 'heaven country', even while they lived in the desert on earth. 
• Disciples of Jesus don't look back.
• Disciples of Jesus continually choose to not go back, but prefer barrenness and a desert wasteland, pursuing God's call, rather than the easier life, in the place they came out of.

The whole message of the Hebrews 11 story of Abraham and Sarah is traveling towards God's home for them.  And on that journey, they participated in making their home in God.

This has always been God's call for all believers.  That is the point that the writer or preacher of the Hebrews letter is making.

For anyone who has either had an unfulfilling Christian life or is just beginning their journey, this is what it is all about.  Coming home and being home.

God has wanted his people to come home to him, make their homes in him and for them to have their lives be a home for him to live in.  This has always been God's plan from Adam and Eve, through Moses and David's times and up to when Jesus walked the earth and then into the present.

Look for and listen.  Open your heart to the possibility of your life changing.  Anticipate coming home for Christmas.

I'll be home for Christmas
You can plan on me
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents on the tree
Christmas Eve will find me
Where the love light gleams
I'll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams
I'll be home for Christmas
You can plan on me
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents on the tree
Christmas Eve will find me
Where the love light gleams
I'll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams

Songwriters: Buck Ram / Kim Gannon / Walter Kent