STABLE – Christ is Our Home
The stable wasn’t their home. How helpless Joseph must have felt as his young wife, Mary, labored in the straw with cattle nearby. I’m sure Mary longed for familiar sights and comforting smells as she brought God incarnate, the prophesied King of Kings, into His earthly season (John 1:14). Whatever the ideal scenario in the minds of Joseph and Mary, stable birth was their reality. Forced to travel in response to the census count, they were far from home and less than comfortable.
It’s so easy for me to get caught up in creating a physical “comforts of home” experience in this life. If I’m not mindful, I focus on what I can cling to rather than who in this less than ideal and sometimes exhausting world that is not our home.
Do you also long for the “comfort of home” feeling?
If your circumstances have you overwhelmed and wondering if or when it gets better, remember that Christ meets us in the here and now. But He is also preparing for us the “not yet,” our eternal home. This life is temporary. The homes we build here will one day vanish. Our hope is not in this life, but with Christ, our Creator, for eternity. This advent season lets focus on the eternal more than we focus on the temporal.
The stable was not Joseph, Mary, or Jesus’ home, but God met them there. This world is not our home, either. Stable or palace, it all stays behind. My prayer for us is that we know better Immanuel God with us, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6). Read about Him in the Bible. From the stable to the cross – He prepared the way for a restored relationship with God through the forgiveness of sins. Now, Christ also prepares our eternal home, which gives us eternal hope.
It is in our nature to long for home, but it is not a comfortable home on this earth our hearts truly yearn for. It is the home we find in the presence of Jesus, whose name is above every other name. When we see the stable–we think of our eternal hope: being forever home with Christ.
Are you clinging to this ultimate hope of Christmas?
“For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body; we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” 2 Corinthians 5:1-10. ESV
Sing “What Child is This?” Read Luke 2:1-32
Ask–What does this song tell me about my eternal home?
Sing “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus” Matthew 12:17-21, Titus 2:11
Ask–What does this song tell me about my eternal hope?
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