Not Home. Come Home.
2025 Lenten Reflections
Maundy Thursday
Home, Coming
"How lovely is your dwelling place,
Lord Almighty!
My soul yearns, even faints,
for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh cry out
for the living God."
Psalm 84:1-2
Illustration by Eunice Sunmie Derksen
A true home is more than walls and beams (two key elements of HOME that we considered earlier this week). It is more than just a shelter from wind and rain. A true home is made of love — of being seen, known, accepted, and held in a space where one’s presence matters. It is emotional safety. It is knowing that you belong not because you’ve earned it, but because someone has chosen to care. It is the quiet confidence that someone will notice when you’re missing, listen when you speak, and stay when you’re struggling.
A home is a place where you are not just housed, but claimed. Not just accommodated, but tended to. It is the daily work of attention, affection, and protection — a thousand small signals that say: “You matter here.”
It’s the way a face lights up when you enter a room.
It’s the gentle noticing when your mood has changed.
It’s the security of knowing there’s a place at the table, a bed with your name on it, a light left on for your return.
That kind of love becomes the scaffolding of a self — the quiet but profound knowledge that you are worthy of care.
When a person has that kind of home, they are free to flourish.
They can rest, imagine, grow, and heal.
They can risk — because they have somewhere to return to.
They can offer love — because they’ve received it.
But for many, that kind of home is elusive.
Children in foster care, shuffled between placements, often grow up never feeling chosen.
Those with chronic illness or disability may be surrounded by people who care for their bodies but not their whole selves.
People in prison often live in spaces of cold control rather than warm regard.
Those with addiction or mental illness are too often seen through the lens of fear or failure, rather than as people aching for connection.
Elders with dementia may no longer be recognized for who they once were — and are sometimes treated as burdens instead of beloveds.
In these places, the architecture of love — the invisible beams that make a house a home — can be absent. And when those structures are missing, it leaves more than loneliness. It leaves people exposed to despair, to fear, to the soul-deep ache of being unworthy.
Because to truly thrive, human beings don’t just need food, water, and shelter.
We need home — not just as a place, but as a promise:
You are wanted. You are welcome. You are loved.
A House is Made with Walls and Beams;
A Home is Built with LOVE and Dreams.
Were We to See with God’s Eyes
This kind of love — of being seen, known, and tended to — is not a naïve hope in a harsh world. It is the very heart of God, planted into the human story from the beginning and pulsing through every act of His mercy.
The world is rough and unforgiving, but God is not like the world.
Where the world discards, God draws near.
Where the world turns its face, God lifts ours.
Where systems fail, His faithfulness does not.
In Scripture, we meet a God who sees the unseen — Hagar in the desert named Him El Roi, “the God who sees me.”
We meet a God who claims the outcast, who calls the wanderer beloved, who wraps the prodigal in robes and rings before the apology is even finished.
We meet Jesus, who touches the leper, sits with the shamed, weeps with the grieving, and restores the forgotten to community and dignity.
This is a God who says:
“I will not leave you orphaned.” (John 14:18)
“I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.” (Isaiah 49:16)
“Even to your old age and gray hairs... I will sustain you.” (Isaiah 46:4)
God becomes home for those without one — not always by removing hardship, but by being with us in it. His presence is not the absence of pain, but the assurance of love that will never let go.
And to us — His people — He gives the radical invitation to carry this definition of “home” out into the world, even when it can’t be built in its ideal form.
We are called to become homes for others:
With our listening, when no one else will hear.
With our consistency, when others have been unstable.
With our welcome, when others shut the door.
With our compassion, even when we can’t fix the circumstance.
We may not have perfect houses to offer, but we can be a presence of safety.
We may not erase trauma, but we can sit with it.
We may not replace what’s been lost, but we can say:
“You don’t have to face this alone.”
The Church is called not to replicate the world’s standards of success or beauty or comfort, but to embody Christ — who made his home among us in vulnerability instead of grandeur.
To bring that same love to those who’ve never felt it.
To offer belonging not as reward, but as birthright.
When ideal homes aren’t possible, we offer real love anyway.
When safety can’t be guaranteed, we offer presence without condition.
When the world is unloving, we love more — because we know the God who first loved us.
This is how we build the kind of home the world can’t tear down. Love, offered again and again, until someone believes it’s true. And maybe, just maybe, they begin to feel what God has always said:
“You are mine. You belong. You are loved.”
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