Made His Home

Day Ten                        

Made His Home           

Luke 4:14-30

When Christ left the glories of heaven and “made His dwelling among us” He set up His earthly tabernacle in Galilee. It was the place He would call “home.” Of course, in one sense, it was not His home. Heaven was His home. From heaven He came and to heaven He would, eventually, return. The Word cannot be bound by human time and space. And yet, in another sense, Galilee was His home. This is true in two ways. First, as God’s instrument, His voice in creation, Jesus the Word was responsible for every rock and rill in Galilee. He was not a stranger to those hills; He had made them. He also had a special connection, surely, to the land of Israel, where God’s chosen people long had lived. Second, Jesus was to call Galilee home because, as He took on flesh, that’s exactly what it was for Him – home. He must have known every inch of Nazareth. As a boy, He must have explored its alleys and hidden corners. As a youth He must have wandered the wind-swept hills and verdant valleys. It was home to Him, with all of its familiar sights and sounds and smells. It was home!

Yet, as John 1:10 tells us, when Jesus came home, His own people did not recognize Him. John does not mean that they failed to recognize His face; He means that they did not understand who He really was. They saw the surface, not the substance. They saw Joseph’s son; they did not recognize the Son of God. In the synagogue, in Capernaum, those who had known Him since His childhood crowed with pride at the local boy made good. But when He began to speak, especially when He began to make such outrageous claims, they turned against Him. “He came to His own, and His own knew Him not.”

There’s an old devotional book, part of a series, popular in a previous generation, called, “Quiet Talks on John’s Gospel.” In it the author, S.D. Gordon, illustrates this passage. He pictures a man coming home from work at the end of a long, hard day. The man is worn out and ready to put his feet up before the fire, but when he reaches into his pocket he discovers that he has misplaced his front door key. However, he knows that his family is at home, so he simply knocks upon the door. The curtains move, and a familiar face gazes upon him for a moment, but the door remains firmly locked. It is his home; his wife and family are within, settling down to eat dinner; but he is left outside. “How preposterous!” we think. “That could never happen.” But it did happen. Jesus went home, but His own people “knew Him not.”

Heavenly Father, when I close the door of my heart to You, keep on knocking. When I’m preoccupied with other things, keep on insisting that I let You in. When my heart is barred against You, when the door is double-bolted, storm the citadel of my pride, until I let You in. For the sake of Christ my Lord. Amen.