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There’s no place like home for the holidays.” Each year, we hear the familiar Christmas songs and receive cards with phrases revolving around the idea of home during this season. Hopefully, memories of family activities spring to our minds in anticipation of the season.
Since the end of October, when I bought my plane tickets, I have been anticipating returning home for Christmas. Lately, as everyone is finishing up final papers and grading in the teaching assistant cubicles, the most common question asked is what everyone is doing for Christmas break.
With my answer of returning home, I usually get looks of confusion. “What do you mean returning?” or “So, you’re staying here?” For some reason, though I’ve made St. Louis my current residence, it still doesn’t occur to me to refer to it as home. Perhaps when I’m out of graduate school with a definite job and with children, I’ll be able to consider my city of residence as truly home. But, for now, home remains in New Orleans at my parents’ house.
Even so, while reflecting on the transitory nature of homes – after all, people usually move around and have many different homes – I was reminded of the nativity story. Mary and Joseph, as we all know, travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem for the census, giving birth to Jesus in a manger. Mary and Joseph were traveling to Joseph’s ancestral home; they were returning home.
So too, do we return home during this season: our spiritual home. The season of Advent plays out our anticipation for the birth of Jesus, but also acts as a reminder of Jesus’ return in his second coming. We know not the hour of his return, but we wait in expectation for it, hoping that we will be among the saved.
We heard in the first Sunday of Advent’s Gospel reading of the necessity for us to stay awake: “So will it be also at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be out in the field; one will be taken, and one will be left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken, and one will be left” (Matthew 24: 39-41).
During this time of preparation for family and friends, as we celebrate the joyful birth of Jesus, we should also prepare ourselves for our return home. Just as we watch people come and go into and out of our lives, just as we watch friends and relatives move away, we must remember that our time here on earth is transitory. We can’t know when our time will come, or when Jesus’ return will occur, but we can be prepared spiritually.
This holiday season, rather than focusing solely on material preparation, we must also make time for our spiritual preparation.
This holiday season, we should remember not only our temporal homes, but we must wait in anticipation for our heavenly home.
Heather Bozant Witcher can be reached at [email protected].
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