COMING HOME

A Sermon the 2nd Sunday after Christmas

Pastor Laura Gentry

Jeremiah 37: 7-14

I’ll be home for Christmas!” so crooned Bing Crosby and so well did he croon it, that he made the song one of American’s best loved Christmas songs.

The idea of going home from Christmas is as popular as the song. Did you go home for Christmas? This season always evokes thoughts of family and close friends—of home. Many people have a deep yearning in their heart to go home for the holidays. And those who can’t be with loved ones on Christmas can become depressed and lonely. The longing for “home” is ingrained in us—whatever and wherever that beloved place of comfort and rest is.

And yet for some, home is a place to which we cannot return because it no longer exists. Perhaps our families have moved away from that special childhood home town, or split up, or aged considerably or passed on, and so going home doesn’t have the power that it used to. Perhaps our sense of home is that we long for a time gone by, you know, the “good old days” when life seemed safer, simpler and changes happened slowly enough that we could keep up. Going “home” in 2010 is a complex issue—it entails more than just taking a road trip to where our family members live. Perhaps it is that truly peaceful state of mind we grasp for, we yearn for, that somehow seems perpetually just out of reach.

In our Old Testament lesson for today, the prophet Jeremiah speaks to those who will soon be returning from exile—longing, as we do, for home. These people had originally been dwelling in Judah, the promised land. The Lord their God had made a covenant with their ancestors. God had delivered them out of Egypt, led them through the desert and brought them to this land. This was the land where they believed God himself lived. Their homes were there, their jobs were there, and most importantly: the temple was there on Mount Zion in Jerusalem—the only proper place, they believed, where they could worship God in peace and joy.

But eventually, their sin brought destruction upon this land. Judah had become a nation of people that no longer loved God with all their heart and soul and might. They became self-centered and heartless. They followed after other gods and this caused them to lose their passion for justice. No one cared about their neighbors anymore—they wouldn’t listen to God. And so God allowed the Babylonians to come and conquered them. Thousands and thousands of Judah’s most prominent inhabitants were taken away to Babylonia to live in exile. Scattered, weary, restless and vulnerable, they longed for home. And now 49 years later, the prophet promises them something astonishing.

Jeremiah’s prophesy for them is very powerful—especially as we consider the context of their sorrow at being so broken and so far from home. And what does God say to these weary people? What message does Jeremiah deliver? “For thus says the Lord,” our first reading says, “Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob and raise shouts for the chief of nations; proclaim, give praise, and say, ‘Save, O Lord, your people, the remnant of Israel.’” (31:1)

What? How in the world would these depressed exiles go about singing aloud, with gladness no less? It seems impossible that God could turn them around so dramatically. They were probably quite upset with God for letting this happen to them, now they are supposed to sing praises? But remember it was their sin that has brought them this ruin, not God’s vengeance. And what does God do for these sinful people in the darkness of their exile? God says, “with consolations I will lead them back, I will let them walk by brooks of water, in a straight path in which they shall not stumble...for the Lord has ransomed Jacob, and has redeemed him from hands too strong for him.” (31:9, 11) God’s response to their sin is grace. God comes to them in their darkness with forgiveness! That’s the kind of God God is.

And not only does God restore them to their homeland as Jeremiah’s prophesy foretold, but they are blessed with great abundance. Their lives “become like a watered garden.” (31:12) What a wonderful image of new life: “a watered garden.” This time of year, gardening seems like a distant memory but think of it for a moment—the beautiful sights and smells of a freshly watered garden. You can almost hear the plants growing. IThe rich new life of a watered garden is a wonder to behold. And so is the life of the Judeans. In due time, they are allowed to return home and their mourning is turned into joyful dancing—their sorrow into gladness. And they are satisfied with the bounty of their forgiving Lord.

But you see, my fear is that we will sit here this morning and not realize that Jeremiah’s prophesy also applies to us. The loneliness of exile did not end forever when the Judeans were returned to their home in 538 BC. The darkness of this world continues to pull God’s people away from the light. We know what it is to live in a changing, violent, unbelieving world with the good old days irretrievably lost—to feel alone and misunderstood and far away from home.

God’s restorative actions didn’t end with the return of the Judeans from Babylonia either. God reached out to us with forgiveness and restoration in the most ultimate way with the birth of that little child, who’s birth we have just celebrated. What came into being in the Christ child was life and that life was the light of all people—the light that came to destroy the veil of darkness that keeps us lonely and separate from God. John’s gospel reminds us that Christ’s light that shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it. And what do all these fancy phrases from the gospel really mean? They mean that Jesus has come to lead us home—and I am not talking about the kind of home where relatives argue and Christmas presents don’t fit and the turkey gets burned. I am talking about that deep sense of peace we yearn for in our heart of hearts. I am talking about our lives being a watered garden of new life and growth. Christ has come into the world to make that image a reality.

Out of God’s fullness, we are given grace upon grace, and so we must believe it. It is really easy to look around at all the problems of our modern culture and feel hopeless. Even Christians can lose their idealism when we are confronted with the heartaches and injustices of our world. In our own way, we know what it is to feel like exiles! How can we find our way home amidst all this? We must step out in faith. We must take the risk to believe that God’s Word is true. We must follow the prophet’s instructions to: “Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob and raise shouts for the chief of nations; proclaim, give praise, and say, ‘Save, O Lord, your people.’” For God can deliver us from hands too strong for us.

All throughout history, God was faithful to the covenant of love God made with Moses and the Israelites. And Jeremiah tells us how God made that same covenant even more intimate by writing it upon the people’s hearts so that they would all know God deep within their hearts and they would be able to love the Lord their God with all their heart and all their soul and all their might—no matter how far away they had strayed. And in Christ, God’s covenant of love came to blossom as God personally became human to bear our sins for us.

That grace-filled act still calls out to us today as we celebrate the Christmas season. God’s love reaches out to us in our modern context and it calls us out of the distraction and despair. It calls us to believe in a better world—a world of peace and justice where people show their love for God by caring for one another. That kind of world is the home we long for. And that kind of home is not in the past, but in the future. We must believe it it so firmly that we act as if it is already true. This is what’s known as believing the future into being. This is the season of light. The light is shining in the darkness. God’s light has dawned upon our exiled world. Let us dare to believe it and embrace the peace that will lead us home.

© 2009 Laura Gentry