I wonder what you think of when you hear that title. You might just have the lyrics of one of Cliff Richard’s Christmas numbers in mind where he croons into an imaginary phone about using whatever has been invented: planes, trains, cars and apparently stars to get home for a romantic Christmas rendezvous. There was of course the ill advised third release of Football’s coming home (at Christmas) for the Qatar World Cup. Most of you are however singing along to Chris Rea’s Driving Home for Christmas in your head.
I’ve not been caught in traffic on Christmas Eve yet. However, we’ve had three nightmare journeys on the 27th. That’s definitely not the day to drive. Once when Sarah came up to my parent’s to join us after Christmas to meet them for the first time and spent several hours stuck on the M1 near Sheffield. Then, once coming back to Birmingham from Kent, I think we spent about 4 hours on the M1. A third time, because we are slow learners, we attempted the journey from Bradford to Kent and it took most of the day just to get out of Yorkshire, something I was happier about than Sarah.
This year, our church are using “Home For Christmas” as the theme for our Christmas carol services and for the build up on Advent. We are going to be thinking about three things. First, that Christmas points us to Jesus as the one who made his home with us. That’s the good news of the incarnation, The Word Made Flesh and secondly about how God invites us to a home with him, the home that Christ has gone on before, to prepare for us. Thirdly, we are going to pick up on what it means for us to make a home here, a home for ourselves and a home for others. This means that there are both lots of Gospel images that will help us to share the good news of Christmas with those who don’t know Jesus. It also means there are going to be lots of practical implications for how we make home too.
In our church services we are going to be exploring themes such as how does “home “ relate to adoption, asylum and immigration. We can’t follow up on every angle in church services, though please do come along if you live locally to find out more. So, with that in mind, I’m also planning to add some articles here, exploring some of those themes further.
Faithroots 