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The Journey Home
A sermon preached by Lonnie Lacy, Seminarian at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Bethesda, Maryland – December 11, 2005
They say that in all of literature, there are really only two stories: Someone goes on a journey, or a stranger comes to town. And right now, in the midst of this Advent season, it seems like our story is about journey. It seems that we are a people on a journey . . . a journey to find our way Home.
This past Thanksgiving, the news was peppered with stories of people waiting in long lines at the airport or on the highway, all trying to get Home . . . all trying to get to that place where loved ones await their arrival . . . where friends and family are willing to dust them off, take them in, and make them feel . . . at Home. And despite this year’s burdensome fuel prices, difficult weather, and a whole host of other reasons not to travel, people still pulled themselves up and set out on the journey, and they will undoubtedly do so again this Christmas. The days are short now, and the winter nights are cold, and lest our spirits fade into the somber darkness around us, we set out on our journey—one way or another—to situate ourselves in the warmth of others in a place called Home.
In many ways, this season of Advent is about a similar journey we make . . . a journey to find our best selves . . . a journey to find God . . . a journey to find our way Home. They say that Advent is a season of preparation, of making our way deliberately to Christmas, a season where we mark the time with four candles so we can see our progress as we journey to search our souls and to find some meaning for our lives. But sometimes I wonder if—in the midst of this Advent journey, in the midst of being responsible and deliberate in searching for the Hope of our lives—I wonder if we don’t miss the other part of the story, which is that a stranger has come to town. In some ways, that seems to be just what John the Baptist is telling us today.
In today’s Gospel lesson, representatives of the Pharisees go to John and ask him, “Hey. Who are you?” John has been attracting a lot of attention lately—more so than these leaders would like—so they set out to make sure he’s not some false prophet, leading their followers astray and undoing all their hard work.
He’s been talking a lot about the arrival of the Messiah—the one who would come and save all Israel from their oppressors—but in the minds of these religious leaders, the coming of the Messiah could occur only through a very rigid series of prescribed events. At this point, these religious leaders have been on the journey for salvation so long that they’ve lost the imagination to even consider that the Messiah might come among them in a way other than what they had always believed. These were an oppressed people living in difficult times, so their hearts were set on the arrival of a rebel—a rebel who could overthrow the Roman occupation and restore the fortunes of Zion —not some poor, illegitimate carpenter’s son named Jesus.
And so, John the Baptist looks at them and says, “Folks, you’re missing him. If you’re looking for a warrior, or an insurgent, or a king, or a rebel . . . you’re missing him. Look around you, because among you stands one whom you do not know.” [1] Perhaps a better translation of the Greek might be, “Among you stands one whom you do not perceive . . . one whom you have not taken the time even to notice.” In other words, a Stranger has come to town.
What we know now that those religious leaders didn’t is that that Stranger is much more than a rebel sent to overthrow a government; that stranger is God among us . . . dwelling in our flesh, breathing in our air, walking on our sod. God’s very presence among us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth tells us that creation isn’t worthless after all . . . that, in fact, our broken humanity isn’t so broken that God couldn’t come and find a home in it. And so, in that sense, the arrival of this Holy Stranger—the Stranger whom we’ll meet in the manger on Christmas night—also means the arrival of Home. Home has come to us . . . and is nearer than we know.
So in this season of Advent—this time of waiting, wandering, and wondering—perhaps we can lay aside that stark and hectic journey wherein we rummage clumsily through our souls, stumbling in the dark for signs of meaning and hope—and instead take on a journey of simple grace. In the end, all we really need is the grace to make it to the manger, because it’s in the manger that we ultimately find the hope of our lives . . . nestled in the heartbeat of a newborn Stranger, lying amid the straw and the flies and the cattle dung. And as we gaze into the bewildered faces of those gathered there—the cattle and the sheep, the sleepy shepherds, the puzzled Joseph and the tired, ailing young Mary—perhaps we’ll find what they and generations after them have found: that all of our waiting and wandering and wondering has not been in vain . . . that God has found us, and we are Home.
[1] John 1:26 (back to article)
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