No season of the year conjures up thoughts about hearth and home more poignantly than Christmas. Songs such as “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” and “There’s No Place Like Home for the Holidays” speak to our deepest longing to return to a time or place where love seemed palpable.
Empty college dorms, bustling airports and interstate traffic jams all bear witness to humanity’s desire to reconnect with loved ones during what has become a season of celebrations and gift-giving.
G. K. Chesterton wrote that there are two ways to get home; one way is never to have left. However, for those who have wandered, the word “home” can trigger feelings that run the gamut from nostalgia to dread. Interestingly, the word “nostalgia” was derived from an ancient Greek word for homesickness, which was a medical condition from which soldiers away from home for long periods of time actually died.
Yet, as much as we yearn for and sing about being home for the holidays, the biblical stories surrounding the first Christmas are about anything but being home. Consider Mary and Joseph had to leave their home in Nazareth to travel to Bethlehem, where they were forced to seek shelter in a place that housed animals.
Then, just when their life had settled into some sort of normalcy, Joseph was instructed by an angel to take Mary and Jesus and flee, not to a land that was familiar, but to Egypt, a foreign country where their ancestors had been enslaved. Given the accounts recorded in the infancy narratives by Luke and Matthew, one can only wonder how the theme of homecoming has become almost synonymous with Christmas.
The simple truth is that we are all sojourners looking for a welcoming smile, a warm hearth and a sense of belonging as we navigate the ups and downs of life. Although nostalgic memories may be comforting for some people, they should also serve as a reminder that none of us, no matter our age or station in life, are really home.
Clearly, there’s a decisive difference between those who know they’re wanderers and those who don’t, between those who accept and embrace life as a pilgrimage, as a purposeful journey marked by prudence, circumstance and grace, and those who feverishly adopt any new thing or experience as a way to bestow meaning on what is a rudderless life.
When we consider that our real home is not a place but a way of being, we can appreciate why the Holy Family was as much at home in a stable and in a foreign country as in their hometown of Nazareth. When we understand that our real home is in the heart of God, we can experience a sense of belonging no matter where life takes us.
Although finding our home in the heart of God is the goal of the Christian life, it takes a lifetime of wrong turns and detours before we get there, which is why the journey to the heart of God is ongoing and takes a lifetime to experience.
Like novice travelers, we often misread signposts and ignore directions from reliable guides. Assuming wrongly that we know the way, we often look for love and security in all the wrong places.
The good news is that we have a Savior who became one of us to show us the way and that there is no better time than the New Year to consult road maps that have withstood the test of time.
Jesus identified himself as the Way, the Truth and the Life. Therefore, New Year resolutions should entail more than deciding to exercise or eat a healthy diet. While such resolutions are good in themselves, there’s more to finding our way to God than caring for our body.
We are made in the image of God, and we have been gifted with a mind, body and spirit. Unless we strive to find a right balance among all three, finding our home in the heart of God will be part of our wish list rather than a must on our bucket list.
Surely, there is no better way to begin 2022 than by resolving to read and ponder the words of Jesus, who shows us the way to the Father.
Needless to say, the journey to God is not without its challenges, nor is it for the faint of heart. Mindful of the words of St. Augustine who prayed, “Our hearts were made for you O Lord, and they are restless until they rest in you,” let’s set our GPS for the journey home. The journey to the heart of God begins in this life and will be realized in the next for all who follow the way of Jesus.