This is the fifth post in this Home blog series. You can check out the first three posts, here, 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.
And, I summed up the most recent post this way:
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.”
Also consider the way I summed up the second and third installments of this series, Home—The Mountain of God Part 1 and 2, which had the same conclusion,
“Our home…The mountain of God will be the joy of the earth (Psalm 48:1–2). And Jesus will reign there as our king. And when we finally come home we will come with singing. And everlasting joy shall be upon our heads. And we shall obtain gladness and joy. And sorrow and sighing shall flee away (Isaiah 35:10). And when we get there, our brother, the High King Jesus, will say, “Welcome home.””
Welcome. That is an emerging theme. God welcomes you home. While, as we explored in that recent post, God welcomes you home with light and bread, that light and bread indicates another element of that welcome: joy. God welcomes you home with joy. Consider some of the images Scripture offers us to point to the joy God has over you.
God’s Welcoming Joy In Scripture
Zephaniah 3:17 describes God’s joy over you whom he has saved. God rejoices over you with gladness before you have a chance to do anything. You will be so stunned by his joy over you that you will be moved to silence, Zephaniah says—he will quiet you by his love. And while you try to gather your thoughts, you’re again interrupted by his singing—he will exult over you with loud singing.
Perhaps Zephaniah adds a little color to the joy that we see alluded to Luke 15:8–10. There we see the parable of the lost coin. The woman searches and searches until she finally finds it. And in her joy she calls and gathers all of her friends and neighbors saying, “Rejoice with me!” And Jesus then says, “Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:10). Notice Jesus doesn’t say that this joy is the angels’ joy, though it is safe to assume that they are certainly joyful. Jesus says this joy is before the angels of God. That is, God whom they behold erupts with joy before their covered faces at the return of a sinner. It’s the type of joy akin to a shepherd who at finding his lost sheep, throws him up on his shoulders rejoicing (Luke 15:5). The return of a sinner, the coming home of the repentant and redeemed prompts powerful joy in your heavenly Father.
Perhaps the best image of this joyful welcome is in the familiar parable of the prodigal son. When the long lost, rebellious son finally comes to his senses and decides to return home to his father as a servant, we see that even he couldn’t anticipate the type of joyful welcome that awaited him. Jesus describes it best:
And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate (Luke 15:20–24).
Joyful welcome. That is what awaits you when you finally get home with God in Jesus. Or, rather, when Jesus comes to make his home with you. Yes we are journeying home to him through this world in a spiritual, pilgrimage sense. We are exiles now. But chronologically and eschatologically speaking, Jesus is coming back to make his home with us. And Jesus had something to say about that too.
In Luke 12:37, Jesus says that his people who faithfully work and faithfully pilgrimage through this life—people who hope in and await his return—are in for a stunning turn of events. Jesus says this regarding those faithful servants who look for his coming:
Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them (Luke 12:37).
The stunning twist in this scene is that the master, King Jesus, will come home and even as you are trying to welcome and serve him, he will welcome and serve you. He will sit you down at his table and he will serve you.
Your God and King rejoices at the prospect of your coming home to him. And when this spiritual reality of being at home with the Lord in Jesus transforms into the eschatological reality of being at home with Jesus in the new heavens and new earth, you will be welcomed with joy. Again, Isaiah 35:10 (51:11) makes for a fitting conclusion:
And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
Christian, you will be welcomed home with joy. King Jesus himself saying to you, “Well done. Welcome home. Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:21).
