This is the fourth post in this Home blog series. You can check out the first three posts, here, here, and here. But here’s how it all began in that first post:
Home. The story of the Bible is the story of God getting us back home with him. This is enchanting in its own right. Whether a warm home life has been your experience or the elusive dream you’ve wished for but never had, we have all experienced homesickness. God weaved the desire to finally make it home to find a warm welcome—the warm glow of the light left on for you, warm bread on the table to nourish and comfort you, and the warm embrace of your family who loves you—into his story and, thus, into the human experience. In order to be properly enchanted by the richness and depth of this story and what awaits us in the new creation, we can’t hurry past the bits and pieces that make up this big story. What is this home for which we long like? Well, hopefully I can unpack that a bit for us through a series of articles. But for now, let’s look ahead at how Scripture describes the New Creation so that we can get just a wee taste of our future home.
In that very first post, from which this excerpt is taken, I pointed to C.S. Lewis’ The Last Battle and a memorable scene where all the characters are racing to the new Narnia, that is, the new creation to get to at the same point. There, the Unicorn says it best,
It was the Unicorn who summed up what everyone was feeling. He stamped his right forehoof on the ground and neighed, and then cried: “I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this. Bree-hee-hee! Come further up, come further in!”
God intends the elements that he weaved into his story of redemption to draw our gaze and our hearts further up and further in to what awaits us in the new heavens and new earth, our true home. The things we see in this story of redemption that naturally evoke a sense of home shouldn’t be written off as mere coincidence. God intends them to offer us a foretaste of our future home where he dwells with us and us with him. We see some perhaps unassuming, easily passed over pointers to home in Scripture’s description of the tabernacle.
I once had a professor point out that in God’s house, he always leaves a warm light on and warm bread on the table for his people.[1] Let’s consider those elements and what they promise.
Light
Consider Leviticus 24:1–4 (cf. Exodus 27:20–21),
“The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Command the people of Israel to bring you pure oil from beaten olives for the lamp, that a light may be kept burning regularly. Outside the veil of the testimony, in the tent of meeting, Aaron shall arrange it from evening to morning before the Lord regularly. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations. He shall arrange the lamps on the lampstand of pure gold before the Lord regularly.”
The High Priest has the responsibility to always keep the lamp of God in the tabernacle burning. Consider what that tells us. The tabernacle sat in midst of the camp of people of Israel. It was the place where God dwelled so that he dwelt in the midst of his people. This camp with this set up, God dwelling in the midst of his people, was the home of God’s people. Imagine being an Israelite at this time who was coming home from a long journey or even just catching up with the rest of the camp to set up your own tent (When millions of people travel together, you have to move in stages [Exodus 17:1]. Thus, not everyone arrives at the same time to the destination). As you get close to camp it’s already dark, what do you see? The light of fires in the distance. Each family of each tribe lighting their fires for cooking and for warmth and lighting their lamps for light. What does it signal to you? Home. We’ve made it. As you get closer, these lights begin to burn out one by one as the people settle in for the night. But, there is one light that stays on. There is one light that beckons to you. There is one light that says, “You’re home.” The lamp of tabernacle, God’s house, remains ever burning. What the burning lamp of God in God’s house would tell the weary Israelite or sojourner among God’s people is this: “I, your God, am home. I am with you, and I’m leaving the light on for you. You are home and you are welcomed.”
You are a sojourner on this earth looking for a better country, a heavenly home, the city God has prepared for you (Psalm 119:19; Hebrews 11:10, 16; 12:22; 14:14; 1 Peter 2:11). In this world, there will be darkness. But Jesus is the light of the world that leads you to life (John 8:12). And when you finally make it to your eternal home with God, you will not find a dark, cold house, shut up house. The warm light of our King will greet and welcome you:
“And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever” (Revelation 22:5).
Bread
Consider Leviticus 24:5–9 (cf. Exodus 25:30),
“You shall take fine flour and bake twelve loaves from it; two tenths of an ephah shall be in each loaf. And you shall set them in two piles, six in a pile, on the table of pure gold before the Lord. And you shall put pure frankincense on each pile, that it may go with the bread as a memorial portion as a food offering to the Lord. Every Sabbath day Aaron shall arrange it before the Lord regularly; it is from the people of Israel as a covenant forever. And it shall be for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat it in a holy place, since it is for him a most holy portion out of the Lord’s food offerings, a perpetual due.”
The High Priest had the responsibility of always ensuring there was fresh bread sprinkled with fragrant frankincense on the table of the Lord in the tabernacle every week. Again, imagine if you were an Israelite in the camp. You’ve finished a hard day’s work, and you are on your way back to your family tent. You decide to walk past the tabernacle. As you walk by the pleasant smell of fresh baked bread, spiced with frankincense greets you. In fact every time you walk past the tabernacle—every time—this is a smell that greets you from the house of the Lord—warm bread, frankincense. While it may promise to cause your already hungry stomach to rumble, what else does this perpetual fragrance promise? You won’t be hungry much longer. It’s the promise that in the house of God, you will always be provided for, your hunger will always be satisfied. God welcomes you home with fresh bread and the promise of provision.
While you sojourn in a world of uncertainty, your king promises to provide you with your physical daily bread (Matthew 6:11). And, in your sojourn through this life you will not only find your physical hunger satisfied by your king, but he will satisfy your hunger for righteousness in the midst of an unrighteous world (Matthew 5:6). Indeed, your king is the bread of life that nourishes and satisfies your hungry soul in the life of your sojourn (Luke 22:19; John 6:33, 35, 48, 51). And when you finally make it to your eternal home with God, your King welcomes you and promises you will hunger no more:
“Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore (Revelation 7:15–16).
Home: Light and Bread
Your home with God welcomes you with promises. Your home with God promises warm light to greet your arrival from your sojourn in a dark world. And your home with God promises warm bread on the table to welcome you and satisfy the hunger you worked up on your long journey. Both the light and the bread are your King, Jesus. He, the light of the world and the bread of life, your God and King will say, “Welcome home.”
[1] Jason DeRouchie offered this insight during a lecture.
