“Chosen and exiled. That is the norm for God’s people.” (Jim Davis) Snow is falling outside as I am sitting here in my office. It is only October, yet with trick or treating happening tonight, the weather, and making plans for Christmas services, it feels like the holiday season has fully arrived. This season tends to be filled with family trips, parties, rituals and all the good food we can eat. Often times I hear of people planning to go home, or planning to have people return home for Thanksgiving or Christmas. Our family normally travels for Thanksgiving to see family in Southern California, but this season we’ll be in the Flathead valley. Yet, wedged between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we’ll be taking a family trip to where I grew up, a place I still call my home, as well. I am thrilled to show my children where dad grew up and partake in all the charm of the German, Switzerland, France corner of Europe I call home.

Home may give you a warm, nostalgic or comforting feeling, or it may bring up painful memories or unfulfilled hopes, dreams and expectations. The Bible reminds us that our ultimate home has been lost, God and humanity exiled from one another. We long for home, or want nothing to do with it, the gospel speaks to both feelings. Under every human heart ache, good or painful, is a desire to be fulfilled and loved by our Creator. We desire to be known and to know the one true God. Sin suppresses this knowledge and tries to fill it with temporary and material distractions. But the Biblical narrative paints a picture of the banality of the human endeavor to satisfy our souls. The good news of the gospel is that our Heavenly Father has unfolded a plan to bring us back to Him, to bring humanity and our universe back from exile, through Jesus our Messiah.