For the last several weeks, we’ve been considering some of the things that our hearts and spirits especially yearn for in this season that leads up to Christmas.  We’ve thought together about waiting expectantly – and about what it is that we wait for.  We reflected on what it means to hope while living in a world that seems pretty hopeless sometimes – and on how we might be part of creating hope in that world.  And we contemplated the notion of wonder – that thing deep at the heart of this season that connects us with Jesus, and with the Holy.

            Today, we’re going to reflect together on one more yearning that is deep in so many hearts during this season … the yearning to go home. 

            I don’t think it’s just a coincidence that so many of the popular songs of this season – songs like “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” and “White Christmas” and even “Silver Bells” – are really about coming home, or about being home.  Even the most popular Christmas hymns – “Away in a Manger,” “Silent Night,” “O Little Town of Bethlehem” – all have at their center the image of that little cluster of people we call the holy family, gathered in a stable, to be sure, surrounded perhaps by strangers, but gathered in a way that conveys a profound sense of “home.”

            And I’m absolutely sure it’s not a coincidence that most advertisements in this season – whether for jewelry, or new computers, or L.L. Bean sports equipment – often feature pictures of happy family members in their homes.  Whether it’s a half-dozen small children clustered on a couch in front of a fireplace, all wearing their little L.L. Bean headlamps, and waiting expectantly for Santa to arrive… or the Mom and Dad under the Christmas tree, Dad handing Mom a beautiful new piece of jewelry, then kissing her tenderly, while the kids watch from the stairwell … or the multi-generational family gathered around a table – either at whatever restaurant is advertising its holiday specials, or at home, in which case the local bed and bath shop is advertising its holiday specials – enjoying a wonderful meal together… all of the songs … and all of those ads … capture in some way our deep yearning to go home, especially at this time of year.

            In fact, I’d be willing to be that as you talk with your friends, or with co-workers, the question probably more likely than any other to be asked is, “Are you going home for Christmas?”  Or, if you’re of an older generation, “Is your family coming home for Christmas?”  There’s something about this season of the year that makes us want to gather in with those who are dearest to us.  And most of us, if we can manage it, try to do exactly that.

            So what do we mean, when we talk about “going home”?

At the most surface level, it’s a matter of physical location.  Going home is about going back to that particular area of the country – that town, that city, or that patch of countryside – where you grew up.  The place where, if it’s small enough, everyone still knows who you are.  The place where, whatever size it is, the sights … and sounds … and smells resonate in your senses and in your soul in a way that nothing else does.

            You know – in a deep and profound way – the shapes and textures and colors of the place … whether they are the shapes and textures and colors of buildings and vehicles and garbabe-dumpsters in cities, or of hay-bales or ocean-swells or mountains elsewhere.  You know what you can expect to hear – whether it’s the bells of the big city cathedral, or the honk of taxis and other traffic,   or the lowing of cattle on winter pasture, or the wind blowing through pine-trees – those sounds ring in your ears and your heart in a way that connects you again to who you once were.  You know what you can expect to smell – whether it’s the acrid sourness of exhaust fumes, trapped in the canyons between tall city buildings, or the salt-tang of the ocean, even in winter, or that indescribably clean smell that comes off fresh snow    on the Midwest plains – the smells take you back, instantaneously, across years or decades.

You sleep in the familiar old lumpy beds that no-one ever uses unless there is company, or you curl up next to the fireplace with a couple of the little ‘uns in your lap, and teach them how to roast marshmallows and make S’Mores, or you wake up to the smell of coffee and French toast that someone else is fixing for you – and it takes you back in time as surely as any time-machine.  And when you see those things again … when you hear those things again … when you smell and taste and touch those things that were once part of your everyday life … it takes you back – not just outside yourself, but inside yourself – to that deep place called “home.”

            But home is not just a physical place.  It’s also a spiritual place.

Many of you know that when I was growing up, my Dad was in the Air Force … and that because of that we moved so often that between kindergarten and high-school graduation I attended nine different schools.  From one year to the next, we would be living on a different air-base than the year before, in a different house or set of quarters, in a different town or city.  So I learned when I was still very small that “home” wasn’t a matter of where we currently lived, but of where our farther-flung family members were … and that no matter where we were stationed, for the holidays, we went “home.”  It might be to my Aunt Cecile and Uncle Marvin’s house … or to Aunt Ann and Uncle Roy’s … or to Uncle Harold and Aunt Ginger’s … but regardless of whether we were in a tiny town in Florida called Moore Haven, or the much larger city of Miami, or in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, when we were gathered with other family, we knew we were “home.”  And I’m guessing that most of you know exactly what I’m talking about … this year, some of you will visit your family members, who are living in towns or cities where you have never lived … but even so, when you’re with them, you will still know that you are “home” together.

            So what is it that makes a place – or a gathering of people – “home”?

First, I think, is that sense of familiarity that we experience when we are “home.”  When we’re home, we know pretty much what to expect.  We know that Grandpa is always going to say the grace before Christmas dinner, and we know that Grandma is always going to tear up before the grace is over, as she looks around at the faces of the people she loves most, and we know that our sister is going to have one more glass of sherry than usual, and then regale everyone with her version of “Jingle Bells,” the one that goes “Jingle Bells, shotgun shells, rabbits all the way…” which she learned way back in fifth-grade and still thinks is hilariously funny, and we know our Uncle Fred is going to insist on telling his awful joke about Roy Rogers and Albert Einstein, and that he’s going to muff the punch-line once again this year.  Home, in many ways, is easier than most other places we go, because we’re seldom surprised, and we don’t have to work so hard at being there … we know exactly how things will probably unfold, and that can be a very relaxing and wonderful feeling.

            Something else that defines home is the special care we are likely to experience there.  I thought about this a couple of days ago as I was eating a piece of toast made from a loaf of bread that one of our members baked and brought for me and Bob as a Christmas gift.  Toast that’s made from bread that is made with love tastes completely different from toast made from bread from Safeway.

            At home, we experience that special “made-with-love” kind of food and care.  And so, at home, you know that your mom – or your daughter – is going to make oyster stew or stuffed cabbage, even though no-one else in the family likes it, simply because it’s your very favorite.  Or your spouse or partner is going to fix – or take you out for – prime rib dinner with Death by Chocolate dessert – because you’ve done it every year that you’ve been together, and because sharing this special meal is part of what makes it Christmas.  Or your brother is going to bring a bottle of your favorite wine, or a case of your favorite beer – just because he knows it’s your favorite, and you can’t get it where you live.  And those kinds of gifts – that kind of care – says both, “We love you” and “We know you.”

            And that brings us to a third feature of home, probably the most important feature of all, which is that home is about belonging.  It’s the place where, in the words of Robert Frost, “when you go there, they gotta take you in.”  When we go home, they do have to take us in – but more importantly, they want to take us in.

And as we share old family stories … as we swap tired old family jokes … as we talk about “Do you remember the Christmas when?” and so rehearse our family’s history … we know them, and we know they know us, and we know that we belong.  We know that we are connected with these people in a way that we are not connected with anyone else on earth.  For better or worse – whether we like our family, or don’t get along so well with them – they are family, and when we gather with them, we are home.

            Now you may be wondering, why are we talking about all this in church?  What is it about all this “home stuff” that makes it more significant than mere sentiment, or mere nostalgia?  What makes all this a concern of our faith?

It is the fact that “home” is not just a matter of location … nor even of certain people … but a matter of spirit.  At its core, when we are “home” – wherever that may be, whoever that may be with – we are also deeply connected with the Holiness at the center of the universe – with God.

            It’s a connection that we yearn for – all year ‘round, but especially this time of year.  It’s a deep and ancient longing, that rings through ancient Scripture passages like the one we’ve repeated over and over this season:  “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light…”  And through the passage shortly before that one, that says:  “Therefore God will give you a sign.  Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel – that is, ‘God with us.’”  And through today’s passage from Matthew’s gospel, in which an angel appears to a frightened and struggling man named Joseph, telling him:  “Don’t be afraid … Mary will bear a son and you will name him Jesus, for he will save God’s people from their sins.”  In our hearts, and minds, and souls, we each know that yearning – for a God who will dwell with us, and who will be our dwelling-place – our true home. 

Martin B. Copenhaver puts it this way:  “’Home is where the heart is,’ or so the expression goes, so for Christians, home is where Christ is, and what we take to be homesickness (that deep, heartfelt yearning for home) is, in part at least, a yearning to be with the one who is called Emmanuel, that is, ‘God with us.’  (It was that longing that inspired a terrified teen-age girl named Mary to say ‘yes’ to God.)  It was that longing that brought the shepherds from the fold of darkness to seek the Christ child.  It was that desire that tugged the Magi as they followed the star (to an unknown destination).  And, in some way or another, it is that yearning that brings us here[1].”

            And so, this year, as you make your plans to travel – or to stay – as you pack your suitcases, or as you decorate for company – as you invite people to your home, or accept an invitation to theirs – I invite you to continue to reflect on the question at the heart of our every journey and our every gathering, “Are you going home for Christmas?”  Amen.