Salmon do it. Hummingbirds do it. Butterflies do it. Turtles do it. All these creatures, and many more: they all . . . go home again.
Salmon find their way from the vast ocean back to whatever tiny tributary in which they were hatched. Hummingbirds fly over 6000 miles to find their nesting sites. Butterflies congregate in the same trees, generation after generation. Migrating turtles closed down whole runways this past summer (2011) at JFK Airport as they made their way back to home ground.
The instinct to “go home” is world-wide, widespread in creation and often times unstoppable.
Forget the stockpile of stuff you gathered during last weekend’s “Black Friday” madness. Remember as you thought about this Christmas that twinge of home-sickness? There is in each of us a “homing instinct” that Christmas draws out of us. Why?
There is, for each of us, a “homey place” where some part of our soul and psyche long to return, year after year. Why else is Barbara Streisand right now singing in your head “I’ll be home for Christmas?” By the way, that song is one of the most recorded Christmas songs, not to mention a favorite “Hallmark Specials” theme songs.
We all get a bit homesick at Christmas time — even if we are “home.” We get homesick for our childhood homes. We get homesick for our own homes filled with our children. We get homesick for homes we never had. We get homesick for the homes we left behind.
Did you hear about the teary kindergartner on the first day of school: “You aren’t homesick already, are you?” the teacher asked. “No, I’m here sick.”
Who first said “home is where the heart is?” Home is not just where the heart is. Home is our main hope of having a heart to begin with.
But is it really the “heart,” our true and pure emotional yearnings, that drives our homing-instinct? If an emotional fix was all we needed, then a few smarmy Christmas specials should suffice. But what if “home” is where our soul soars and our spirit is fulfilled? What if “home” has as much to do with our Heavenly Father and the future that awaits us as it does with our earthly family and relationships? What if our “homesickness” is as much about our eternal home as our earthly home?
What if instead of finding our fulfillment in establishing a home, a family, a career, a reputation, a community standing, a professional expertise, a Klout score of over 50 what if what we need to be truly “at home” is something different? What if “coming home” is the indwelling and ingathering of the presence of God? What if “coming home” is to be gift-wrapped in the God of love?
In this week’s gospel text Jesus assures his disciples that after the hard times comes a holiday, that there will be a “welcome home” party. The triumphant return in “great power and glory” of the Son of Man ushers in a new era, ushers in the fullness of the kingdom of God.
It is a dual “homecoming.” The Son of Man and Son of God, Jesus the Messiah, returns to earth “in clouds,” enveloped by God’s glorious presence. It is a homecoming for the divine who created the heavens and the earth. But it is also a homecoming for the Earth-born Jesus who willingly chose to embrace the limitations of human existence not knowing when his own return would be scheduled. The human Jesus knew of his infancy flight to Egypt, a childhood in Galilee, an adulthood marked without a home to call his own, and ostracism from his own family and synagogue because of his ministry and mission. But the human Jesus did not know of when he would “come home.”
The ultimate “coming home?” The Son of Man Jesus “comes home” to this broken world to offer healing and redemption; the Son of Man Jesus comes to “gather” all who are scattered and homeless back into the presence of the Father. Whatever has been missing in our lives; whatever has kept our spirits yearning and honed holes in our souls, is rectified, redeemed and renewed by the presence of this returning Savior, Jesus Christ, Son of Man, Son of God, Messiah.
This week is the first Sunday in Advent. The theme for the first Advent week is anticipation. Any child who is on the move to discover just what and where Christmas goodies are being secreted can testify that “anticipation” is a HUGE part of Christmas. But what are your “anticipating” this year?
Instead of “anticipating” a too large VISA bill, or a too small bank account, or several holiday pounds to lose, why don’t we anticipate, why don’t we “advent,” a “homecoming?” Why don’t we anticipate the “welcome home” that the coming Christ child offers us?
However much we might hope for designer duds or plane tickets to Hawaii, there is still something undeniably attractive about homemade gifts. Baked goods, lumpy kid-crafts, artisan creations . . . knowing that someone YOU KNOW made possible what you’re receiving makes the gift tender and treasured. No matter how much life has made us sophisticated or cynical, “homemade” still makes a difference. That’s why churches have bazaars and craft sales at Christmas.
Perhaps that is because in our hearts and souls — especially at Christmastime we all know we are “home made.” Forget all those self-made, “pulled-myself-up-by-my-bootstraps” stories we love to show and tell. We are all “home made.” For better or for worse, we’re all home spun. We are all home goods. And all home goods are damaged goods.
Some of us eventually rise far above our home start and home-made status. Some of us fill in the field, home field, rich and full. Some of us never get established and languish even at home. But whatever roots our “home-made” give us positive or negative — we never really leave the “home-made” behind. Whatever we do. Wherever we go. We bring our “home-madeness” with us.
It is as if we are pre-programmed with a certain “set” of home-made abilities. But don’t think that means you have strict limitations on where and what and who you are. The possibilities for all of us “home-made” “home-sick” humans are endless. Want an example of almost endless possibilities with a limited starting point?
There is an Australian group of humorist-musicians called “Axis of Awesome.” They have taken a simple musical procession of four chords and, without beginning to exhaust the possibilities, offers excerpts from almost a hundred popular hits, even iconic songs, all of which are based on the simple progression of the same four chords.
No doubt inspired by the Axis of Awesome YouTube “hit,” the musical team from North Point put together their own version of this variation on a four chord theme. Here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HJ2Qkys86c
These four chords are “home base.” These four home-base chords are the foundation upon which a vast amount of human creativity and divine inspiration has been built. Listen to the music. All those songs. All those tunes. All those styles. They all vastly different. Yet they all somehow resonate with our souls. Those four simple chords speak to us —in different ways and at different times.
The Christmas story is a homecoming because it strikes all four chords, the sacred chords of home. You all have heard the Leonard Cohen song “Hallelujah,” which currently you can find in 200 different recordings, although the most famous are those by Bon Jovi (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGXmsxYvrxU&feature=related), K.D. Lang (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_NpxTWbovE), and my personal favorite, by 8-year-old gospel singer Rhema http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoBW57t1Mvs&feature=related. The first verse written by this Canadian Jewish composer and writer introduces the “secret chord” that inspired all these songs:
I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
“Hallelujah” . ..
Could this short stanza explain why at Christmas time home is calling? Maybe the Christmas story brings out our homing instinct because it strikes all four chords in us, or what might be called “The Sacred Chords of Home.” Maybe there is a holiday in the heart whenever we hear these four chords for a reason?
What if faith is the “Fourth,” Hope is the “Fifth,” Forgiveness is the “Minor Fault,” and Love the “Major Lift?”
The Chord of Faith comes first. Home is a place where people have faith in you, and believe the best in you and about you.
After all, in the Christmas story isn’t the first note struck Mary’s faith in the words of God to her and God’s mission for her life?
There is a test known to psychologists as the body-sway test. A person stands with eyes closed and is subjected to repeated suggestions that you are falling. If, in spite of this, you remain in a fairly upright position, it can be assumed that you are emotionally mature; but if you give way to the suggestion of falling, the chances are that you need some major maturation.
Every day we face a world where people are telling us that we’re falling, that we’re going to fail, that we don’t have what it takes to do what we’re doing. In a world where everyone is telling and yelling “You’re gonna fall! You’re gonna fail!” . . . home is the place where people have faith in us, and because of their faith and trust in us, we can be secure in our faith. Faith is a gesture of defiance, an act of revolution and refusal to believe in nothing or what the well is selling. Faith is fighting back against all that backwash and whiplash.
Home is where people believe in you and have faith in you. The “Fourth” is a sacred chord.
The Chord of Hope comes next. Hope is “the Fifth.” Home is where you can hope and dream and where people hope and dream dreams for you. Home is where people hold out hope for you when all else have lost it.
After all, isn’t the Christmas story an elaboration of a divine dreamscape for the world?
Joan Chittister in her book Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope (2005) calls memory the “seedbed of hope.” Hope is not “in spite of” struggle and pain, she says. Hope is born in the midst of struggle and pain from the memory of goodness and beauty and truth. “Biblical hope sees the present circumstance with the eyes of memory.” The memory of the stories and songs of the Bible gives us hope. The memory of home gives us hope, even when those memories are filled with pain and heartache.
The Bible instructs us to be “prepared” to “give reason for the hope that is in you.” Did you catch it? The assumption is that disciples of Jesus are known as those who have hope. We are assumed to be a people of hope. What a BIG ASSUMPTION.
The Chord of Forgiveness is the Minor Chord, the “Minor Fault.” We must learn to be forgiven. It doesn’t come naturally. And home is where we learn to forgive and to be forgiven.
After all, isn’t the key to the Christmas story Joseph’s willingness to forgive and forget?
Home is where you are loved even though you are deeply flawed, and though you are deeply troubled. Home is where you learn to recognize wholeness and holiness in others, with all their flaws and cracks. Home is where the people who know you the best, love you the most. Home is where forgiving is found in reversing the words—giving forth: giving forth blessing when you feel like cursing; giving forth blessing when you feel like revenge.
The Chord of Love is the last chord, the “Major Lift.”
Love came down at Christmas,
Love all lovely, love divine;
Love was born at Christmas,
Star and angels gave the sign.
Love is the native language of the home, the natural knowledge of the home. The love that flows naturally from the hearth is a heart knowledge not a mind or head knowledge. If we have learned anything from the great mystics of our past, it is that we can never know God by thought, only by love. Irenaeus (2nd century AD) says that we can never know God as an object, but only by sharing in God’s own self-knowledge.
C. S. Lewis wrote once that the only place where we can be safe from the dangers of love is hell. As any parent knows, love is costly. A broken heart is the price of love. But as Daniel O’Leary reminds us, "Loving someone wraps invisible blankets of blessing around both people." Sometimes the wrap is the gift. Home is where we are constantly wrapping gifts, blankets of blessing that keep us warm in a very cold world and in the wintry seasons of life.
Faith, Hope, Forgiveness, Love: The Four Sacred Chords of Home that the Christmas story strikes in every one of us. What if “home” is fundamentally more than a place we go, but a frequency that vibrates within our hearts and souls summoning us to a space that is beyond ourselves?
Jesus’ vision of the Son of Man coming in clouds might sound strange to our 21st century ears. But what that “Son of Man” is offering is a way “home,” an invitation from God to return to God’s presence and dwell in God’s kingdom. It is an invitation not just to “come home for Christmas” but to “come home, come home . . . Softly and Tenderly Jesus is calling, calling all sinners come home.”
COMMENTARY
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . .”
It is the end of time?
This week’s gospel text is taken from the chapter in Mark which is often referred to as “The Little Apocalypse.” The first part of the chapter has Jesus responding to the disciples’ discussion question about how they will be able to recognize that the end of the age is upon them (13:4). Jesus’ recitation of approaching wars, persecutions, false Messiahs, and extreme hardship offers a chilling picture of the “worst of times.”
But as today’s text unfolds, Jesus reveals God’s mission behind the unfolding of these eschatological events the approach of the Parousia, the return of God’s presence in our midst. This presence goes by the name of “the Son of Man” or “The Second Adam” or “The Human One.” The “Son of Man” ushers in the “best of times” which, as it moves beyond the world and brings in God’s kingdom, moves beyond any human measurement of time to the end-time.
Generations have expended much energy, suffered great anxiety and ruined great reputations by applying to their own times the “signs” Jesus outlined. This has made apocalyptic expectation a kind of bad joke in theological history. The problem is that too often the church has been focused on the “what will happen” and failed to face “who” is in charge of what’s happening and “why” there is this all this happening in the first place. Jesus’ words in today’s text reminds his listeners that human history is not just a circling cesspool of “trials” or draining whirlpool of “tribulations.” There is at work in the world a divine mission for rescue and redemption, hope and happiness.
“In those days” recalls the predictions found in vv. 17, 19 with “those days” being the unfolding final events of this age. Throughout the first section of today’s reading (24-27), Jesus uses the language and imagery of Hebrew eschatological references, although typically none of his references are exact quotations but are slightly adapted. After the predicted events unfold on earth the very heavens themselves will become participants in eschatological outcomes. Recalling various texts (e.g. Joel 2:10; 3:15; Isaiah 13:10; Amos 8:9), the sun and the moon are darkened and the very “powers” (“dynameis”) in the heavens are shaken. But while the Old Testament texts connected these cosmic cataclysms to the approaching day of Yahweh, Jesus now uses them as signs of the imminent arrival of the Son of Man.
When at last this long-awaited figure appears, Jesus uses language from Daniel 7:13 to describe his approach. In Daniel’s text this “one like a son of man” is never clearly defined but here in Mark’s gospel the Son of Man is clearly Jesus (see 2:10, 28; 8:31, 38; 9:9, 31; 10:33, 45). The “clouds” that accompany this Son of Man’s arrival are a familiar Old Testament symbol of God’s presence (1 Kings 8:10-11).
Unlike Daniel’s Son of Man, however, Jesus’ eschatological figure arrives with a specific mission: to “send out the angels and gather his elect.” While both scattering and gathering the people had been God’s doing in Hebrew Scripture (see Zechariah 2:6; Deuteronomy 30:4; Isaiah 11:11, 16; 27:12), this is now the activity of the Son of Man who has returned “with power and glory.” There is no limitation on this Son of Man’s jurisdiction to act. He will gather from “the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.” There is no place too far for the Son of Man to reach in order to return his people to his presence. Although the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple may have rendered the people “homeless,” the return of the Son of Man brings them back to their ultimate home.
Jesus steps back from the final curtain of the Parousia and once again focuses on the current moment, the current of time in which his disciples are living. The lesson or parable of the fig tree is offered to show how Jesus’ followers may discern the approach of all “these things.” The fig tree, which loses all its leaves over the winter, is something of a late bloomer. Unlike the early blooming almond tree – or the more familiar (for us) crocus and snowdrops — the fig does not begin to bud out until all threats from that “blonde assassin” known as frost are gone and springtime is well advanced. New growth on a fig tree means summer itself is nearly at hand.
Likewise, when the disciples see “these things” unfold, with “these things” being the tribulations and destructions Jesus foretold in vs. 5-23, they will also know that the time for the return of the Son of Man is near, even “at the very gates.”
However much “this generation” may witness the destructive power of wars and earthly injustice, Jesus reassures them that they have also been witness to that which is eternal. Jesus claims divine authority by insisting that while all creation, all the heavens and the earth, may “pass away,” his words will “not pass away.” In Isaiah 40:6-8 and 51:6 the eternal endurance of God’s word is contrasted with the transitory nature of heaven and earth. That same divine quality is now affirmed by Jesus about his own words.
Amazingly, however, Jesus immediately follows that confident assertion with a humble admission of ignorance. “Neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son” know the “day or hour” when the “end times” will become the end-of-time. Yet Jesus’ admission that even he does not know everything does not detract from his divine stature and status. Instead it serves to inform the disciples about what their own role should be as they await the approach of all “these things.” As Jesus stands on this earth, among his own disciples, he accepts the limitations of his humanity, limitations that include the Father’s precise timetable. If Jesus ultimately accepts such a human limitation, and if even the “angels” are ignorant of “the day and hour,” then how much more should the disciples should count themselves out of the loop and not complain about their lack of divine knowledge as well?
Instead of appointing themselves time-keepers, Jesus exhorts his disciples to take on a different role. They are to stand at the gate and act as ever vigilant watchmen, always on guard for the return of their master. If the return of the Son of Man will be marked by the gathering together, the “home-coming” of the elect, then it is imperative that those who know he is coming to bring them “home” keep awake. The role of those waiting for the homeowner to return is twofold: first, to “beware” or “be on guard;” and second, to “be alert.” The watchman-at-the-gate’s appointed role is to be prepared for and alert to the master’s homecoming. That the master will return is without doubt. But the timing of that homecoming is beyond knowing. The watchmen-at-the-gate, those charged with keeping their eyes peeled for a home-coming event, are given one ultimate order: “Watch!”