Coming home

Many of us will go home for Christmas. Perhaps we live far away, where we work or study. But at Christmas we go home. And for so many families, when a son or daughter comes home, it is a cause for great joy. There will be hugs and exclamations: “How lovely to have you home again!” Special food will be served, presents lovingly wrapped will be opened, there will be cheerful chatter and much happiness. It is not always like this—Christmas is a sad time for too many. But when things are well, there is something wonderful about coming home. An exuberant mother may even want to rush out and give a present to the bus driver who has brought her child home!

John the Baptist is, in a way, like that bus driver. He is going to be a man who brings people home. What the angel says is full of joy. John will be “a joy and delight” to his parents (v 14), for they are godly parents and, as they watch their child grow, they will delight to see his loyal love for God. They will remember their long wait for a child and thank God day after day for giving them such a son. 

But not only will John be “a joy and delight to you” (his parents); others too will be happy, for “many will rejoice because of his birth”. Here is a son who will bring overflowing joy to men and women throughout the land. Why? It’s not just that everybody is happy that this long-childless couple now have a fine, strong son. It is far deeper than that.

He won’t drink wine, perhaps as an outward sign of his special dedication to God. Even while he is growing in Elizabeth’s womb, he will be “filled with the Holy Spirit” (v 15). This baby boy is set apart for a holy life—a life of beautiful distinctiveness, of moral purity, of loving dedication to God—from even before he is born. The Spirit of God, the Third Person of the Trinity, God himself, will live and breathe in John’s heart.

So what will happen when God, the Holy Spirit, lives and breathes through this man? He will do what God loves to do. God loves to bring people home; so this Spirit-filled man will bring people home. He will “bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God” (v 16). That is why there will be such joy. All over the land, men and women who are far from God, not trusting him, will come back in repentance and faith. And they will thank God for John the Baptist, who brought them home. He will be like the great Old Testament prophet Elijah, who called the people to repentance (1 Kings 18).

And it’s not just that John will bring people back home to God. He will also bring them home to one another. The “hearts of the parents” and “their children” may be shorthand for whole generations: a brief way of speaking of all kinds of painful alienation (v 17). When we are in a far country, a long way from God, we put up many barriers between ourselves. We fall out with children or parents, we hate other races, we mistreat women, we resent those we don’t get along with in the workplace. And so John will turn hearts back to God and to one another. Marriages will be saved and families put back together. No wonder there will be joy! Think about relationship pains in your life or family. How much they hurt! Ask God to do that “bringing home” work in you and others.

Best of all, John will “make ready a people prepared for the Lord”, prepared for God, himself, to come and rescue them. John is not just the bringing-home prophet. He is the getting-ready-for-God prophet. When we read on in Luke’s Gospel, we find that the men and women who came home to God when John preached were precisely the people who were ready to welcome God’s King (Luke 7 v 29-30).

Meditate today on just how joyous it is to repent: to turn from living for yourself, to turn from your sinful self-centredness, and to come home to the God who welcomes you. This is the God who sent John the Baptist to bring people home. 

It is good to look forward to happy homecomings at this time of year. But when you find yourself thinking about those moments—relishing the anticipation of that sweet hello, or dreading the tension of that awkward encounter, remember the God who stands to welcome you home. 

The joy of that homecoming to God is far better even than the happiest Christmas homecoming.

Sing

Come let us sing of a wonderful love,

Tender and true,

Out of the heart of the Father above,

Streaming to me and to you:

Wonderful love

Dwells in the heart of the Father above.

Jesus is seeking the wanderers yet;

Why do they roam?

Love only waits to forgive and forget;

Home! Weary wanderer, home!

Wonderful love

Dwells in the heart of the Father above.

(Gerhard Tersteegen, 1697-1769)

Pray

Almighty God, who sent your servant John the Baptist to call people to repentance and to prepare the way for the Lord Jesus, who came to seek and to save the lost, grant that, as we remember John’s birth with joy, we too may turn to you with all our hearts and wait joyfully for that day when the Lord Jesus will return to rescue all who are waiting for him. For Jesus’ sake, Amen.