Howbeit Jesus suffered him not, but saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee. Mark 5:19

Homecoming… one of my favorite days of the year at our little country church. It has it all: old friends, food, fellowship, and worship. I love seeing old friends and hearing about what’s going on in their lives. Homecoming is a special day to remember the past, and look forward to the future.

Thinking about it, and what it means, spurred thoughts of all of the different kinds of homecomings we experience. There’s that daily ‘home from work/school’ feeling, the simple joy of returning home. There’s the thrill of coming home from college, to go back and be leave the stress of classes and let mom take care of us for a bit. There’s coming home from vacation, while we enjoy our time away, for some reason, coming home is very sweet. Then we have coming home to the Lord, our salvation experience, when we come “home” into a right relationship with Him. We’re created to be in a relationship with Him, and it’s the lack of that relationship that makes us feel uncomfortable. Then we have the homecoming that is death, when we fall into the arms of our Savior and move to our forever home in glory. Just this past Sunday, we sang “I’ll Have a New Life” at church, and as I sang the alto part, which means singing “I’ll have a new body” multiple times throughout, I couldn’t help but consider the perfect immortal body we will have when that final trump sounds and how amazing it will be to finally and permanently be exactly where we were created to be: in the presence of our Savior - worshipping and singing His praise.

Mark 5:19 (used above) references the man who had been possessed of many demons. He had been tied with many chains and ropes to keep him, and had wondered among the tombs crying and cutting himself. When Christ had cast the demons into pigs and healed the man, he sought to go with Christ as He travelled, but Jesus sent him home. Imagine what that homecoming must have been like. Surely his family had given him up for dead, never expected to have him in their lives again. Just be still for a minute and think about what it must have been like for his mother or father to see him walking down the path to their home, completely healed, properly dressed, and in his right mind. Consider the joy with which they received him: one who they had to have given up on, returned to them as good as new, healed, and perfect. Don’t you know that everybody wanted to know how that had happened and who had been involved. Do you think their minds turned to the ancient scriptures and their prophecies of a man who was to come?

Consider this: when Christ came into your life and healed your sin-sickness, did you go home and tell them what He’d done for you? Does your life reflect that change? Do people meet you and know that something is just a little bit different about you? Or have you let the filth of this old world cloud your witness? Have you let yourself get sucked in by the bright and shiny things the ole devil has to offer? Or is your life a light shining for Christ? Whichever place you fall into, He is willing to use you. Have you failed Him miserably? Repent, and return to the joy of your salvation. He loves nothing more than for someone to allow themselves to be used. He doesn’t care where you’ve failed in the past, only that you are willing to surrender yourself to Him now. Coming back into a right relationship with Christ, either from a lost condition or a backslidden condition, is the best homecoming of all. The blessings of living a life in the will of God are more than any of us deserve on this earth, and yet, He stands waiting, ready to bestow them upon any who ask.

Return to me, says the Lord of hosts, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. Zechariah 1:3b esv