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Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. (1 Peter 3:18 NIV)
In Grace for the Moment, Volume 2, 110, Max Lucado writes this.
One of the reference points of London is the Charing Cross. It is near the geographical center of the city and serves as a navigational tool for those confused by the streets.
A little girl was lost in the great city. A policeman found her. Between sobs and tears, she explained she didn’t know her way home. He asked her if she knew her address. She didn’t. He asked her phone number; she didn’t know that either. But when he asked her what she knew, suddenly her face lit up.
“I know the Cross,” she said. “Show me the Cross and I can find my way home from there.”
So can you. Keep a clear vision of the cross on your horizon and you can find your way home.
Home where your Father lives. Home where you are loved, protected, and safe. Home where you belong.
Jesus died an excruciating, torturous death on the Roman cross for you on that Good Friday more than two thousand years ago—so you can be reunited with your loving Father. So that you can go home. Doesn’t that thrill you? Humble you? Mystify you?
Home. This side of the fall, everyone on this spinning planet yearns for, longs for home. We imagine it to be a place of rest and stability, the familiar residence where we fit in. But how often is home an empty illusion void of the peace we so desperately seek?
Yanked from God, not one of us truly belongs here. Our frustrated desires to be with Him leave us wandering through life, lost and confused like the little British child in the story.
We want to be home. We long to be home.
Kathryn Butler, “Wanderers on the Earth,” from Desiring God’s website, explains it so well.
Our heritage as nomads began when Adam and Eve, trembling, skulked away from the garden with their eyes averted from God (Genesis 3:21-24). Our displacement has continued since then, driving us into shackles (Deuteronomy 6:21), into the wilderness (Numbers 32:13), into a constant restlessness as we strive to become whole again. To be gathered and led, finally, completely, by the patient, loving arms of the good shepherd (Zechariah 10:2; John 10:11).
In the meantime, our souls stir in discontent. Restlessness grips our bones. “How lovely is your dwelling place O Lord; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God” (Psalm 84:1-2). While we seek, strive, and pine for belonging, we know the rust-colored roads and white clapboard are only shadows of the home for which we all yearn.
Yet even in our most desperate longing, we have hope. As C.S. Lewis writes, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world” (Mere Christianity, 138). While photographs grow yellow and roots from trees push through the decaying sidewalk, we remain God’s beloved. We bear his image (Genesis 1:27). He knows every wind-torn hair upon our heads (Matthew 10:30). Christ offers us, at long last, the promise of home, and peace, and belonging for which we all thirst (Psalm 42:1 Matthew 11:28). While we struggle through cultures and memory to discern our place, we cling to the hope that this sojourn on earth is transient. As Paul writes, “For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling” (2 Corinthians 5:1-2).
We serve a God who hears our cries, who knows the fracturing of our hearts as we wander the earth. Through Christ’s sacrifice, he welcomes us into respite (Psalm 107:4-7). As the Father embraces his prodigal son, so God rushes to us with open arms, welcoming us to his table, inviting us to enjoy the communion possible only through the healing power of redemption (Luke 15:20)—through the forgiveness of our sins, which at long last restores us to God and makes all things new (Revelation 21:5).
In Christ, we find belonging. Through him we revel in a joy without boundaries, a joy that never fades, a joy whose walls will never crumble to dust. As the road unwinds, Christ’s resurrection draws us into the perfect communion for which our souls ache. He restores us. He renews us. He finally, gently pulls us weary and dust-covered from our wanderings, and at last calls us home.
So let’s keep a clear vision of the cross.
This Holy Week let’s be filled with awe and wonder and gratitude for our Savior whose body was broken and bruised there on that cross, whose blood was so willingly poured out to cover our sins, the innocent for the guilty. His selfless sacrifice amazingly provides the forgiveness we need and reestablishes our precious relationship with God.
We are no longer lost!
Yes, now we can find our way home. We can be with our loving and merciful Father forever. Believe that with all your heart, dear friends.
We can finally be where we truly belong.
—Eileen Hill
