A Home Away From Home

The Norfolk Church of Christ perceives its calling to be a home away from home.  While many of our members have been a part of the congregation for years, others, sadly, are only here temporarily.  The church has come to accept that as the cost of being a church in a military and university town, and yet that gives our church a unique opportunity.  When it’s time for our members to move on, we hope they will take whatever they’ve received from the church here and share it in the place in which they come to stay.  While we recognize this difference in members who bless the church and community in Norfolk for many years and those who move on after a short time to bless other communities, there is a spiritual sense in which those members are not so very different.  In order to understand why, it’s necessary to understand some of Israel’s history.

We find in Leviticus 23 God’s command for the people of Israel to observe the Feast of Tabernacles (sometimes referred to as the Feast of Booths).  During this feast the people would live in tents or other shelters made from cut branches for seven days.  This was to commemorate the forty year period of Israel’s wandering in the wilderness after its exodus from Egypt during which they had no permanent home.  Neither, for that matter, did God Himself, who dwelled with His people in the wilderness in His own tabernacle.  The feast was a reminder for God’s people that they once wandered as pilgrims on their way to the land God promised them.  It was a reminder that they were, in some way, still pilgrims.  

In a time long after the exodus, the Book of Nehemiah tells us of the people in Jerusalem reinstating the Feast of Tabernacles after the people of the Kingdom of Judah returned from their exile in Babylon. A careful reading of Nehemiah chapter 8 will reveal that it wasn’t the people of Judah being taken into captivity that interrupted observing the feast. In verse 17 it reads: “So the whole assembly of those who had returned from the captivity made booths and sat under the booths; for since the days of Joshua the son of Nun until that day the children of Israel had not done so. And there was very great gladness.”  This is a shocking admission! Joshua was the leader of Israel during the conquest of Canaan.  That means it was just one generation after Israel had arrived in the promised land that it had forgotten where it had come from!  It seems evident that the people had gotten comfortable with where they were very quickly.  They had forgotten that they were still a pilgrim people.

The reason that it was necessary for Israel to continue the practice of pilgrimage even after settling in the land God promised is that even this land was not a final destination.  It was, rather, a signpost for a place even more wonderful.  The people of Israel ought to have known this, because Abraham knew it. This is what the writer of Hebrews has to say about God’s promise to Abraham:

⁸ By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. ⁹ By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; ¹⁰ for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.

¹¹ By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age, because she judged Him faithful who had promised. ¹² Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born as many as the stars of the sky in multitude—innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore.

¹³ These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. ¹⁴ For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. ¹⁵ And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. ¹⁶ But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. (Heb. 11:8-16, NKJV)

Abraham understood the fulfillment of God’s promise not to be a specific geographic location or an area within a geopolitical boundary, but a heavenly country where God is reigning and fully present with His people.  Perhaps it wouldn’t be so difficult to imagine Abraham singing “This world is not my home, I’m just a-passing through” or something like it.

This is why the members of the Norfolk Church of Christ, both the ones who are with us for a short time and those who remain much longer, are not so different. Both are a people of pilgrimage, and the Norfolk church is a home away from home for all of us. We may love the church in Norfolk, and may miss it when we go, but none of us should get too settled or comfortable while we’re here.  As good as the church may be, it is only God’s down payment on a promise to come.