home for CHRISTmas…

i was sitting with a friend of mine at the trails’ starbucks close to where i lived in las vegas and they started playing a song there and he said, “that is the best CHRISTmas song that has ever been written”. now he had just told me the news that he had just gotten back from his home in ohio where he had buried his 85 year-old dad so home was on his mind.

my wife, margaret has told me of how her dad who was a 17-year-old navy sailor out on a ship at sea back during wwii, and they would play that song over the loud speaker and he would lean over the rail and cry, cry for home. the song is i'll be home for CHRISTmas.

it's curious when you think about it, most people plan to be any place but home on other major holidays. people go south for easter, north for the fourth of july, anywhere on labor day. but CHRISTmas is different, isn't it? people fly across the country or drive half the night through snowstorms to be home for CHRISTmas.

it's all rather ironic though when you read the account of the CHRISTmas story in the bible, because what you find when you read the story carefully is that no one was home at the first CHRISTmas. mary and joseph weren't home. their home was nazareth, and they found themselves in bethlehem.

the shepherds weren't home. they had to work that night out in the fields. the wise men from the east weren't home, they were traveling a great distance. and in a very real way, JESUS, the CHRISTmas child, was very far from home.

the bible reminds us that JESUS voluntarily left the safety and splendor of HIS home in heaven to carry out HIS mission here on earth. HE was a long way from home on that first CHRISTmas. but somehow, whenever we see a nativity scene, when we see a temporary shelter with a manger and parents huddled around it, most of us never give a passing thought to the fact that no one was home on the first CHRISTmas. we just try to make sure that we're home for CHRISTmas.

have you ever tried to define what home really means? have you ever tried to discover what the dynamics of home are all about? oh i can understand why a friend of mine who has just lost his dad would want to be home or why a lonely young sailor would be longing for home but what about us?

just a thought from the front porch…