The Look and Feel of Home

“Then have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them.  Make this tabernacle and all its furnishings exactly like the pattern I will show you."  Exodus 25:8-9

The Look and Feel of Home
By Rev. William Dohle

It has been 22 years since I left home...but I can still see it in my mind.  I can still hear the creek of the floor beneath my feet and the pounding of the stairs as a visitor comes down to my room.  I can still smell the damp basement and see the Star Wars wallpaper hanging in my room.

If I concentrate, I can still see home.  Every detail as it was when I grew up.

I wonder if you thought back on your life, on the first place you called "home", I wonder what you would see.  What smells might you remember smelling?  What sounds were all around you?  Was it a modest dwelling, a small place?  Or did you live in a stately mansion?  What does "home" feel like to you?

That is the question, I think, behind the descriptions we read in the later half of the book of Exodus.  These are pictures of home, at least to the ancient Israelites.  Written as a prescription for building the tabernacle of God in the wilderness, they are used later as well as the people move God from a tabernacle to a temple.

But how are they used today?  There is no temple or tablernacle anymore.  Jews worship in their homes or at their synagogue.  What do we make of these words now?  How can we, Gentile Christians that we are, read them for today?  Are they just nice descriptions of an ancient place or worship?  Or do these words have meaning for us in our lives?

It seems that behind these descriptions there is a longing for home.  A longing for a particular place with its particular smells and sounds and flavors.  If you read the 25th - 27th chapters of Exodus, you'll find many descriptions. I think behind them we might read some longing for home.  Some memories of what the first home with God was like.

"Over here is the ark of the covenant.  A box covered in gold in which the covenant we have with God is kept..."
"Over here you can see a table about this high on which the bread of the Presence of God was kept.  I can still smell what it smelt like!"
"And over here you can see a lampstand of pure gold with flowerlike cups and seven lamps to light the room."

As you see, these descriptions help us see what the Israelites first home looked like and how it was constructed.  Through these words, God helps us re-enter the world of ancient Israel and see for ourselves what their first home with God was like.

But a home is more than just the experience of a place.  A home is about people.  It's about presence.  What makes our homes what they are isn't the furniture we have or the smells we fill our air with or the sounds of our electronic devices.  It's our presence.  Home is home because we are there.  Because it's where we've chosen to dwell.

In my lifetime so far I've had many homes.  Every place I've lived I've considered home at the time.  Each place holds a special place in my heart.

But my home is now where my family is.  Where my wife and children are.  That's home.  Home in that case can be in a house or an apartment or even in our moving van, going from place to place.  It can be in the wilds of Montana or in the middle of the midwest.  Home isn't kept to where I grew up.  It's found where the presence of my loved ones are.

With God it is the same.  The tabernacle was once home for us and God because, as Exodus says, "...I will dwell with them."(Ex. 25:8).  God dwelt in the tabernacle with us.  So the tabernacle was home.

But since then, God's home has moved on.  Once he dwelt in the tabernacle and then in a temple.  And now, in these last days, God has poured his spirit into our hearts, as Jeremiah says.  And someday, God will truly dwell with us.  Here will be God's home.  Not in a tabernacle or a temple or hidden away inside our hearts.  But here.

“Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God."  Revelation 21:3

This verse from Revelation is the fulfillment of the tabernacle we read about in Exodus.  Where home was just a memory there, now Home is with us.  Where Home was sequestered away someplace where no one could reach it or locked inside where no one can see, now Home lives with us in plain sight.

That's a Home to look forward to living in and with.  That's Home is a place and a person worth remembering and longing for.
  
God, you have dwelt in many places at many times.  In these last days, you have poured out your spirit into our hearts.  Give us faith to look forward to the time when you will live together with us in plain sight.  Amen.