Maybe next year

The Lord said to his people, 'I scattered you in all directions. But now, you exiles, escape from Babylonia and return to Jerusalem."

What is your Babylonia? What is your Jerusalem?

It comes to me that the other night I was telling a story and I talked about coming home. What I meant was coming back to the place we're living in Eunice, La. What I said, though, was home. My, my. How things have changed in our lives.

What is your Babylonia? What is your Jerusalem?

When we were in Israel, I toured the Holocaust museum. It is a moving, deeply emotional place for us Gentiles. I can not imagine what it must be like for Jews to walk through this place.

I was particularly touched by a sign that told the tale of how Jews would always describe the future by saying, "maybe next year in Jerusalem," meaning where ever they were, maybe next year they would meet in their home, Jerusalem.

Lately, this notion of whether or not the United States would continue to declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel is a mute point, really. Because it simply is. It will always be home to those of that nation, of that faith. It is in their very DNA, this notion that Jerusalem is where they will go, where they will stay.

I submit that is the very feeling that is in our own DNA. We are called home by a God who is fixing the table for us, in the lingo I grew up with. We are being called to the place where we should want to be so badly that we will overcome our mistakes that try to keep us from there, overcome by simply believing in a God who died for us.

That notion is a difficult one for many, but truth is often a difficult thing to hear. Jesus came, he died, he returned ... home. I believe that with a core that can't be dissuaded.

That calls me home, like the most wonderful lighthouse beacon of all time. I hear it, see it, taste it, feel it. It is what keeps me going sometimes, when the life isn't all that glamarous or beckoning. When I'm tired and I've been less than successful, the notion that there is a place where the swing and the rockers are on the front porch just waiting for me is as wonderful as cold watermelon on a warm summer's evening.

I, like Paul, so long to be with Jesus that it is tangible. I know I have things left to do on this earth. I know I would desperately miss my wife and children and grandchildren and granddogs and grandcats.

But ... home. Home.
Home.

Maybe next year in heaven.