Hold On, We're Coming Home

Look and see, for everyone is coming home. Your sons are coming from distant lands; your little daughters will be carried on by the hip. Your eyes will shine and your hearts will thrill with joy. Isaiah 60:4

Last year, Drake released a hit song and video titled “Hold On, We’re Going Home”, which he rescues a woman from an angry mob of kidnappers while reassuring her that they would eventually be going home. The lyrics below underscore the significance of home:

                        I got my eyes on you

                        You’re everything that I see

                        I want you heart, love, and emotion endlessly

                        I can’t get over you

                        You left your mark on me

                        I want your heart, love, and emotion endlessly

                        ‘Cause you’re a good girl and you know it

                        You act so different around me

                        ‘Cause you’re a good girl and you know it

                        I know exactly who you could be

                        Just hold on we’re going home

                        Just hold on we’re going home

                        It’s hard to do these things alone

                        Just hold on, we’re going home (home)

About this time every year, we hear and retell the Christmas story and I’m sure you’ll hear it again sometime today, if not before Thursday. What I would like to focus on is Joseph’s homecoming to Bethlehem from his current home in Nazareth. In those days, Caesar Augustus imposed taxes based on where you (the husband, man of the house) were from, not where you currently live. Every man returned to his hometown upon decree to be counted in the census. Joseph brings a very pregnant Mary to Bethlehem for this reason (see Luke 2:1-4). To make it easier to understand, imagine me packing up my wife and driving back to Conway to be counted in that city’s census after being away for so long. Since I (technically) haven’t counted as a fulltime resident since the late 1990s, it would be tough to uproot my life simply to be counted in the city’s population. However, we are to give Caesar what he is due. [Sidebar: I was in Arkadelphia in 2000 and Benton for the 2010 US Census counts. Conway is just the town I grew up in and where my paternal lineage lies.] More so, try walking forty-eight miles from our neighborhood to Friendship with someone who could have very well been ready to give birth and definitely wanted off her tired feet. Joseph was also commissioned by God to undertake the arduous journey – certainly he didn’t know the child Mary was carrying would be our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. After a period of time of fulfilled obligations to Caesar in Bethlehem, they returned to Nazareth (2:39); no word about grandparents or how the in-laws took to Joseph and Mary’s extended stay. Since he was a carpenter, I’m sure he could always find work to provide for his family.

Strange parallel:  My father is a carpenter by trade and mother stayed at home with my brother and me throughout a significant part of my childhood. While we have heard Jesus had siblings, He and I are both firstborn boys.

Isaiah implored the Israelites in Chapter 60 to look around them and see that everyone is coming home. Today, we fly, drive, hop, skip, jump, sail, walk, roll, etc. to be home for Christmas just to be back in a native setting. As much as I try to tell myself that Bryant is home because we bought that plot of land and have established roots in the city, the holidays remind us that home is where the heart is. It’s why as a customer service manager who worked Christmas Eve in college I quickly sprinted to my white Mercury Topaz to enter Interstate 30 and embark on that two-hour trip home. It’s why we scurry to Big Mama’s house and church for ham, dressing, a feel-good message from the pastor, and our babies to give us the same joy their grandparents shared not that long ago.

One day, we are all going home. It’s hard to do these things along – just hold on, we’re going home.