For the story is about hell and heaven, trauma, shame, and finding love—the real Jesus accepting a broken man; and it is about the Father, Son, and Spirit finding us in the far country of our terrible and powerless mythology—to share their life with us. For the truth behind the universe is that God is Father, Son, and Spirit; and the one unflinching purpose of the blessed Trinity is that we would come to taste and feel, to know and experience, the very trinitarian life itself.
Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.
~ paul, The Least of The Apostles, in Romans 7 & 8
Oh beloved, it is true. We long for Home. We long for a place where we belong. And, our whole lives we have been willing to do almost anything to get the sense that we were there. The problem though, is in our thinking that home is simply a place.
Yes, it is a place. And it is more. For the place Which is Home is quite large. It is Alive and It has made eternity His own home. Home is the context of the Life of G_d. Home is family. Home is a Father and Son, and the Spirit of unity between the Three of Them.
But… back to the thing about us being willing to do almost anything to get the sense we were there…
In our fallen understanding we miss that home is indeed a location, but that that location is larger than the intersection of four dimensions (up/down, left/right, back/forth and time). And in our flat-landed and fleshly view, we try to set down stakes and bring the pleasure of home to ourselves. But, in attempting to draw life towards ourselves, we actually just wall ourselves in.
We do worse than just walling ourselves in. We block the flow, really, of anything good in our lives. As we try to set up our own homesteads, we push life away. And the harder we try, the more we circle the wagons in defeat, the more we feel home slipping away.
Oh… this is not as mystical as it sounds. To get a sense of the comfort of “home,” addicts do it by shoving people away and shoving chemicals into their bodies. We have all been there. Some of you, beloved, are still there. But, it never works.
What to do?
Go Home. It is simpler than we make it.
How?
We are already there… Actually, He is already here.
Can we see it? Read the passage. Jesus made this possible when He condemned sin to death, by His own death. In His infinitely powerful work on the cross, He tore the veil that had confined His presence to a locality in a temple in Jerusalem – and burst out across the entire planet. This symbolic act of tearing a big curtain was made a tangible reality when His Spirit came to stay, at Pentecost, a mere 50 days later.
And, each of us never has to long for home in the way that we have done it in the past. We are Home, when we live in the infinite Spirit. There are no boundaries to His Presence. He is with us wherever we go. There is no place He is not. This is the freedom we have always been looking for before, but always found ourselves in – instead – a trap of our own making.
So, are you longing for real home? Just look away from that point inside of you. That place is just an empty spot that you are trying to make feel like home. And in turning away, realize that the full heart, the sense of wellbeing, and the deep awareness of belonging is something we are drawn into – by being drawn away from a focus on our own self – and put directly onto Him.
Tonight is your night beloved. Time to walk in The Spirit. He is the Home you have been longing for.
