Home, Part IV

Part IV of sermon, Home

Have you ever felt homesick?  Have you ever been on a trip, or working hard away from home, or even when your family is gone, and you are alone at your house – have you felt homesickness?  That yearning to be where you belong? 

The first year my son went to college, he called home every day.  He was fine – he sounded fine – but he surprised me by needing to speak with us every day – to tell us about what was going on.  I was so used to him only calling me when he needed permission or money or transportation, that when he called home that first Saturday, my first instinct was to think, “What does he need?”  What he needed was just to talk, and we talked for an hour about school.  In a way, he was homesick.  When we move far away from God, or maybe even before we come close to God, we are homesick.  We yearn for what can complete us – fill us.  I think in this passage from John, Jesus is telling us that what we yearn for is a relationship with God – we yearn to abide in Jesus – abide in God.

Listen to how the Psalmist says it, in Psalm 84:

How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of Hosts!

My soul longs, indeed it faints for the courts of the Lord.
My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God.