The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. ~John 1:14 (The Message)

We’ve always loved this translation of Christ made flesh. It’s so personal and intimate. A perfect image of the way our servant-Savior desires to be with us. Like a hen with her chicks, He wants to gather us in closely. He refuses to detachedly hover on the fringes of our lives, but deeply longs to dwell with us in the busyness, chaos, loneliness, and every-dayness of life. Ordinary meeting extraordinary in real time.

Scripture makes clear in so many other passages that the Lord of the universe wants to make His home with and in us. But not just that– He wants to BE home to us. No matter how confusing, frustrating, overwhelming, or unholy the world around us becomes, we carry home in our hearts as His children. His kingdom is our true home, and we dwell in it through Christ in us. We draw others into it when we are Christ to them through our words and actions.

As missionaries living overseas, we’ve often confronted and wrestled with how we define “home.” It’s an amazingly complex concept when your physical home is in multiple places! Is home the space where we feel a sense of comfort and familiarity? Is it where we are accepted and loved? Is it even a physical space or just a feeling? Or can it be all of these things, at once or different times, depending on the circumstances? I think the answer is “all of the above.”

After two years of living in Africa, we’ve been back in America for nearly a month now visiting family and friends over the holidays. Consistently we are asked— does this still feel like home to you, or does Kenya feel more like home now? Our response is “yes.” The home we returned to four weeks ago is the same in many respects. Yet WE have changed in the two years we’ve been away. So while many things about it still feel like home, especially the relationships we’ve maintained in those two years, it also feels less like home than before.

Similarly, Kenya is as much our home as we’ve allowed it to be. We didn’t grow up there, and many of the cultural norms are different than what we are accustomed to in our home culture. Though physical comforts may differ slightly from our American home, we find home in the relationships we’ve built there, with our Kenyan and American friends. And we find home with each other as we grow stronger in our marriage through new challenges, demands, and adventures.

As we contemplate advent– Christ leaving His Father’s house and moving into our neighborhood— perhaps we are discovering that we can relate a teensy bit more than before. We can identify with the longing to be with loved ones. To hold them close physically, if only for a season. And to keep them close in our hearts always. To offer gratitude to Father for the gift of community and authentic relationships that comprise “home” for us. Those dear ones who want to be in it with us, wherever and whatever “it” is at the time.

And we are even more awestruck that God wants to dwell with us. That He moved into our neighborhood and yours, to be at home with us and to be home for us.