Home
for the Holidays
An
Advent Sermon by Brent J. Eelman
Abington
Presbyterian Church
December
17, 2006
Zephaniah
3:14-20
Sing
aloud, O daughter Zion;
shout,
O Israel!
Rejoice and exult with all
your heart,
O daughter Jerusalem!
15The Lord
has taken away the judgments against you,
he has
turned away your enemies.
The king of Israel, the Lord,
is in your midst;
you shall fear disaster no
more.
16On
that day it shall be said to Jerusalem:
Do not fear, O Zion;
do
not let your hands grow weak.
17The Lord,
your God, is in your midst,
a warrior who
gives victory;
he will rejoice over you with gladness,
he will renew you
in his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing
18 as
on a day of festival.
I will remove disaster from you,
so
that you will not bear reproach for it.
19I
will deal with all your oppressors
at that
time.
And I will save the lame
and gather the
outcast,
and I will change their shame into praise
and
renown in all the earth.
20At
that time I will bring you home,
at the time
when I gather you;
for I will make you renowned
and praised
among all the peoples of
the earth,
when I restore your fortunes
before
your eyes, says the Lord.*
As
a fisherman, I marvel at the Pacific Salmon or Chinook. They are
large and powerful fish. They also taste wonderful, but that is not
the source of my wonder. It is the life cycle of the salmon that
fascinates me. They are born in streams and rivers far from the seas
and lakes that they will inhabit during their adult life. When they
are ready they migrate down the river into the large waters and there
they will live for 5-7 years. During this time, they will travel
thousands of miles. They will eat uncountable small fish as they
grow to sizes as large as forty pounds. Then in the fall, the mature
salmon begin a most amazing journey. No matter where they are in the
ocean or lake, they will migrate home to reproduce. Male and female
will make this last trip so that the next generation of salmon will
exist. Built into each salmon is a “homing device”.
Somehow they will find the mouth of the river where they were born.
After they find that they will begin the journey toward their
birthplace. These mature salmon, about to die, find the strength to
swim upstream, jumping obstacles in their way that often reach
heights of 6 or 7 feet. Then they arrive at the creek, or the feeder
to the river where they were born and they begin the cycle of life
and death again.
I
have often wondered about this powerful homing instinct that Salmon
have. What is it in their biology that enables them to find their
home? There are other places, some more convenient where they might
reproduce, Why do they seek their home stream? The fisheries
biologists have answers, but even their explanations do not remove
the wonder from this phenomenon.
Human
beings are not governed by many instincts. We differ from the other
animals of the world by our ability to reflect upon those things
which drive us. We are able to subvert many of our instincts,
sometimes for the better, sometimes to our own detriment. Yet, I
believe that we have a “homing instinct.” It is a
spiritual homing instinct. There is something in each of us that
longs for home, for the source or ground of our being. It may not be
the place of our birth, but it is that place where we felt the
comfort and the security that every child and adult needs. Home may
not be with our biological families, it may be a school, or a group
of friends, but home-coming is a strong drive that each of us has.
I
disagree with those who say that this is merely nostalgic. It is
not; anything but. I believe that the longing for home, like the
journey of the salmon, is fueled by the desire for rebirth and
transformation. There is a restless desire in us for “something
more”: for something better in life. There is a hunger in the
hearts of human beings for a better existence, for a new beginning.
So we often seek the place of beginnings… home, hoping that
there we will discover life anew and be reborn. Dan Wakefield, a
Hollywood screen writer, wrote his spiritual autobiography. He was a
success. He had it all in the glitz and glitter of Hollywood…
yet there was a deep pain and longing that alcohol and other
substances barely numbed. He entitled the story of his spiritual
journey: Returning, which is an emotionally terrifying account
of how he came back after wandering in the neon wilderness of
Hollywood for thirty years.
Then
there is Mary and Joseph. We read that they, by Roman decree,
returned to Joseph’s hometown. He must have been gone for a
long time, because no relative was in Bethlehem who would house him
and his pregnant wife. Joseph returned to his ancestral home and
there the birth of Jesus occurred… there the rebirth and
transformation of humanity began.
We are in the midst of the commercial Christmas and the religious Advent. The two dovetail in our experience and often confuse us. Advent is about waiting and Christmas is about the birth of child, the son God, the Messiah. But Advent is also about returning home. The prophet Zephaniah captured this longing in his promise to the Hebrew people who were captive in Babylon or scattered throughout the ancient world.
And
I will save the lame
and gather the outcast,
and
I will change their shame into praise
and
renown in all the earth.
20At
that time I will bring you home,
at the time
when I gather you;*
Home
is about healing and restoration. It is about hope. All of us have
some powerful memories of Christmas time. I remember a time early in
my ministry when I was living in Missouri. It was a hard year and I
was over a thousand miles from anyone in my family. Being a minister
means providing for other people’s celebration and sadly we
often subvert our own needs… but I remember how I wanted to go
home that year, and how that Christmas eve, when the last candle was
extinguished in the sanctuary, I got in my little Volkswagen bug and
drove through the night, for 18 hours, so I could be home.
The
television is filled with the movies of this season, from It’s
a Wonderful Life, to the Bishop’s Wife. The
stories are different, but the theme is the same. It is the human
longing for spiritual awakening and rebirth. It is our desire to
renew our hope and to believe again.
There
is a cynical and crusty part of each of us that wants to eschew such
nonsense. But it is not nonsense. It takes courage to allow
yourself to experience and feel your need for hope, for rebirth and
transformation. Can you allow yourself to feel that longing? Can
you respond to its tug on your heart? I sometimes think that the
rush to the stores and malls is a superficial attempt to fill that
emptiness and satisfy that ancient hunger longing… Perhaps
the new toy, the new outfit, the new gadget will renew our lives…
but we have lived with the disappointment of things.
Advent
does not point us to the mall, to the Christmas party, to the store,
to the tree, to the bearded elf dressed in red… Our heart
will not find its rest there. Gifts are fun and a wonderful
expression of love, but they do not give life and they do not heal.
They do not transform us and make us new…. Only one gift does…
and that is the gift that we anticipate together: the child born of
Mary and Joseph. During this season, we discover that the home we
long for is found in the heart of one who had no home in which to be
born… It is this child, Jesus, who bears the promise of
transformation and rebirth for which the human heart longs.
This Christmas season will take us to many places… Many of us will return “home”, whether that means family, friends or a special place… recognize the heart that seeks the warmth of home during the cold of winter… but also, this Christmastide, respond to the promise of the child Jesus… In the cold winter of the soul… allow the child to be born again in you… and may you be transformed in your seeking. The good news of the gospel is that we will be brought home… we will be transformed… Thus we can live in hope.. Amen.
*The
New Revised Standard Version Bible, (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson
Publishers) 1989.
Abington Presbyterian Church, Abington, Pennsylvania, www.apcusa.org