January 5, 2014
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
In the past two Sundays, we have seen some people we haven’t seen for awhile. Our children have come home for the holidays. After Christmas Day, I know of many who were on the road to visit relatives and friends in faraway places. Some were going home because as Dorothy said when she came home from Oz, “There is no place like home.” Home is truly where the heart is.
I think about what home means to me. My hometown team won the World Series. I sometime can be identified from Boston for my accent. But none of our children and grandchildren lives there anymore. Is home wherever our children are?
Thomas Wolfe wrote a famous novel that says, “You can’t go home again.” You might be able to physically return to the place of your birth, but nothing and no one, including yourself, will be the same. The “home” of your memory no longer exists. It’s like me driving up on Tallwood Drive off Hillside in Daly City and peering at “82” where we lived in the 70s and where our son spent his first few years of life. The house is not the same color anymore and nothing there is home now.
Can we ever go home again? All of us yearn for “home—a powerful word that stirs up deep emotions. If you ask anyone of any age to describe the home where they grew up, they’ll be able to provide a lengthy and detailed description. Undoubtedly they will remember details like where they slept, what mealtime was like and who sat where around the dinner table. “Home” is supposed to be a safe haven; a port in the storm; a place where the door is always open; and you can count on being welcomed.
When we moved to San Francisco this last time and packed up our things and sold the house in Malvern, Pennsylvania to come to the West Coast, our son was not able to pack up his own things. We did it for him and for the longest time, he kept his house keys so that he would be able to go home again. He needed closure that I think he still hasn’t had. For our son, home is that place where he was accepted, just the way he was.
But what if we didn’t have a home to which to go back? What if there were no one and no place that welcome us?
Jesus Comes Home
As a church, we are completing our seasonal homecoming celebrations of Advent and Christmas. Today is the last day of the Christmas season. There won’t be any advent candles lit next Sunday. In the past month, we have spent weeks awaiting for John’s promise that, the true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world” (v. 9). Jesus was coming home.
We may not have prepared a “Welcome Home” banner for Jesus, but we have been lighting candles on the Advent wreath and opening little windows on the Advent calendars—all to help us count down the days until we could sing with joy and amazement, knowing that Christ had actually chosen to come to us and dwell among us. It is a homecoming celebration like no other.
Then Christmas arrived and we gathered on Christmas Eve to sing carols, read the lessons and enjoy beautiful music. On Christmas morning, we opened presents and ate traditional food that we remembered when we were young. We may have sung Christmas carols as a family and hopefully you didn’t go out shopping. Christian churches across the globe marked the glorious occasion of the arrival of the Christ in this world.
Christmas is the celebration that Jesus did indeed come home again. The Word, who “was with God…and was God” came back to dwell among God’s people whom he had known from the very beginning. “The Word became flesh and lived among us” (v. 14). In the Greek, Jesus “pitched his tent” among us.
This is the miracle of Christmas. Jesus came home!
But there is a problem. Jesus “was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him” (v. 10). It’s like God has moved into our neighborhood. A house goes up for sale, and the neighbors are curious to learn who is moving in. Sometimes new neighbors are well received, but other times, they are targeted with hate. How would we react if we learned that Jesus Christ was going to move in next door? Jesus experienced rejection when he moved God’s life in human form into this world.
It seems that Thomas Wolfe was right—you really can’t go home again. The homecoming celebration fell flat because when Jesus came home, no one recognized him. Or even worse—even if they knew him, they did not open their hearts to him and welcome him.
In the past few years, there has been news about how in airports or city halls where people fight to display signs of Christmas to the world. The real struggle is not in those places at all. The struggle is whether you and I are going to allow Jesus to come home in us—in our hearts and minds and hands. Is there a Christmas nativity in your heart?
Why can’t Jesus go home again? What is going on here?
Not Welcome
We all want happy endings like Dorothy coming home to Kansas. It is like that Folger’s Coffee commercial. The smell of coffee wafts up the stairs to awaken sleeping parents with the homecoming of their long-absent son. They hurry downstairs to envelop him in hugs and smiles; this is what homecoming is supposed to look like.
We want happy endings. We would like it to be a “tie a yellow ribbon ‘round the old oak tree” moment when the hesitant returnee discovers that, not one, but 100, ribbons have been fastened to the branches of the tree as a symbol of welcome and joy. We would like an over-the-top, full-out, heart-felt homecoming, complete with love, welcome and recognition.
But what if there was no recognition? What if the father or mother stood there, proud and expectant in military dress, and no one came running? What if their arms were open and no one stepped forward? How sad. How empty. How lonely.
That emptiness is what Jesus experiences. Somehow, Jesus’ own creation, the ones who “came into being through him” (v. 3) did not know him and did not respond to him. Jesus came home but there was no loving response. The welcoming shout and joyous hug never materialized for Jesus. Jesus went home and the hearts of the people were closed. The welcome door slammed shut in Jesus’ face.
How can this be? What went wrong? How can the people of God not recognize the Son of God?
Children of God
John hints at the answer when he says, “but to all who received him, who believed in his name (Jesus) gave power to become children of God” (v. 12). Clearly many people, perhaps most people were not ready to become children of God.
One of the big disconnects each week is the one between the Church on Sunday and the congregation’s lives lived Monday through Saturday. In the living that you do during the days between Sundays, do you recognize Jesus?
In Christ, something new has happened in the world. The Word became flesh and lived among us, enabling the world to see and trust God in a whole new way. Here on the second Sunday after Christmas, Jesus got out of the cradle and set up a tabernacle in the world. We, like John, are not the light, but we are called to bear witness to the light. John calls us to bear witness to the true light. When we are witnesses of Christ coming home to the world, we recognize him.
In verse 16, John says that we have received “grace upon grace” which means that we have the ability to point toward God. In later passages, Jesus will declare that as his words and works point toward God, so the words and works of those who believe in him can also point toward God, perhaps even in greater ways (14:12).
While Christ comes into the world and the world came into being through him, yet the world did not know him. His people did not accept him. Our sins of apathy and infatuation for material idols cloud our witness as a church and as Christians. We may be here on Sundays but do you know him and recognize him on the other six days in the week?
We may not be ready to receive Jesus when he comes to our home. We may feel unprepared like we haven’t had the chance to clean up and put on our best face. We may think that we have to impress Jesus with a tidy soul. We might be so caught up with our day-to-day chores and lives that we just don’t have enough time to welcome Jesus in. Can Jesus come home to your heart on those days too?
Coming Home
We ministers often comment about Christmas Christians at this time of the year. These are the people who show up for worship on Christmas and Easter. While I would like them to come the other 50 Sundays in the year, I am delighted that they are home for Christmas. It’s a good start.
There’s a fable that comes from the Jewish tradition. It’s the story of a man who left his own home to seek the great city of light far away. He walked and walked all day. Just before sunset, he stopped and found a likely place to camp for the night. Before going to bed, he carefully placed his shoes on the ground, facing in the direction he was headed. That way, he figured, he would set out in the right direction the next morning.
In the middle of the night, something happened. A stranger came along and turned the man’s shoe around. In the morning, he awoke, put on his shoes and set out on his journey again. Thinking he was headed for the city of light, he walked and walked all day. Just before sunset, he looked down the road and saw a city that looked rather familiar to him. He entered through the city gate, and found a neighborhood that also looked rather familiar to him. He entered the neighborhood, and came to a house that looked rather familiar to him. He entered into the house. And there he lived happily ever after.
The journey of faith is always a journey homeward to Christ. The Christmas and Easter Christians know how to come home and for that reason alone, we pray that they and all of us would eventually welcome Jesus Christ into our homes and hearts again.
If we don’t know Jesus because we were not out looking for him, Jesus would later say, “Seek and you will find.” If we are not seeking or looking, we will not find or recognize God who is right in front of us. When we don’t knock, the door of Jesus’ house won’t be opened.
When we are willing to be open and to welcome the God who knocks on the doors of our hearts, we will be given the power of faith. We will receive “grace upon grace.” But it takes that first step, the willingness to welcome the Christ into our lives. Jesus is coming home today.
On this first Sunday of the New Year, would you welcome Jesus home into your hearts? As you begin to fill up your new 2014 calendars, why not dream up some ways for Christ in us and this church to “live among” the world, so that through our words and works, and with the help of the Holy Spirit, Jesus would become present and point others to God and God’s kingdom?
Jesus always wants to enter our lives. Jesus is knocking at the door. Now it is time to open our hearts and say, “Welcome home Jesus!”
Let us pray.
Lord Jesus, you became incarnate among us, shared our lives, walked our world and thereby demonstrated for us the truth about God. You were not only the embodiment of compassion and loving care for us, you are God with us, a God we could not have thought of by ourselves. We pray that we would invite you home into our hearts where we may recognize you and love you. We praise you this day for coming home. In the name of Christ Jesus, we pray. Amen.