It was a warm day in the summer in Grayson. Our windows were open, so it was easy to hear him, even though he was still half a block away:
"Ma! Ma!"
TJ, our oldest son, had been our playing with his friends. And, as usual, he was barefoot. And, you already know what happened. He discovered one of the great truths of nature, one of the great equations of all human existence
Barefeet + 1 honeybee = pain.
So what does he do? He runs home, yelling the whole way, "MA! MA!" He comes crashing in through the front door. Now, remember, he had stepped on a bee, so he has just run home as fast as he could, using both feet. That means he responded to a pain in his foot by immediately running on it. No wonder Bill Cosby says all kids are brain damaged!
And, just like you’d expect, the stringer was long gone by the time he got there.
So why’d he do it? Why do all kids do it? Why do all of us want to do it sometimes? Run home as fast as we can . . .
They say one of the loveliest words in the English language is "home." That is not really surprising. Whether in warm light pouring out of the window into a dark night, or simple walls that hold out the wind and rain of a storm, home is beautiful word.
Home is where you run when you are hurting. Even now, all we have to do is close our eyes and our memories wrap us in a big hug and set us down to hot soup and cold milk and fresh baked cookies.
Jesus knew that. He had been a kid once. He had not transformed instantly from baby to full grown Savior, with only a momentary pit-stop at age twelve. No. He had been a kid for years. More years than he would be an adult. So he knew . .
The afternoon was bright and sunny. The world seemed a happy wholesome place. The boy skipped along under skies he had made and jumped over rocks he himself had formed. But that was far from his mind now. He was playing. And Jesus really knew how to play!
He ran to the top of a little hill and pretended that he was Judas Maccabees scouting out enemy positions. He watched a bird float effortlessly across the sky. If he thought about it, he could have brought out those strange memories of how that wing had been formed, and the dynamics of motion and lift that made it all work so well. But he was a kid. And he did not need to understand it at the moment. He just needed to watch it.
Sometimes, he moved rocks and watched the small insects scrambling for cover under the sudden glare of the afternoon sun. He would bend close, the smell of the soil filling his senses. The tiny ants were scurrying hurriedly below. Some were carrying the small white eggs of the next generation of ants. Others were just running. Bumping into each other. Climbing over each other. So afraid. So small. So crowded, and yet so very alone. It reminded him of something else.
A single tear dropped from the his cheek on to the dry earth.
There would be enough time for tears and enough tears for all time later. Now was the time for childhood.
He gently put the stone back in place, and turned to skip on toward another adventure. Behind him a sea gull called out. He turned to watch it fly. He never tired of the beauty of this wonderful magnificent world. As he looked behind him, he took another step on to the soft grassy ground.
His foot jerked back before his mind even felt the stab of pain. He had stepped on something. Something hot and sharp. He danced back a step or two, holding his foot.
There was the small part of a bee still attached to the bottom of his bare foot! The stinger must still be inside! In his foot! Piercing him!
The One who would one day endure the pain of nails and thorns was, for now, still just a child. And tears poured down his face as he turned to run home.
"Mom!"
He started crying out long before Mary could possibly have heard. He limped for a few steps, only to give way to the fear and break into a full run.
"Mom!"
Like all little boys with a stinger in their foot, he is now driven by something much deeper than just the little stab of pain.
"Momma!"
He is hurting, afraid, alone, and more than anything in the world he needs to find his way back home.
"Momma!"
"What is it, Yeshu?"
"Momma! I stepped on a bee!"
The last phrase was smothered in his mother’s robes as He threw his arms around her.
Mary wrapped her arms around him and held him close. So close she could feel his heart pounding inside him. No more words were spoken. None were needed. Slowly the pounding of his heart lessened, and sobbing faded. Still, Mary held her arms tight around her firstborn son. The house work could wait. Everything could wait.
Finally, Jesus relaxed and let his arms fall gently to his side. Mary pulled the corner of one of the folds of her robe and carefully wiped his tear-streaked face. The eyes of her son looked up from the ground into hers. Just the hint of a smile came across that trustful young face.
"Now let’s have a look at that foot, shall we?"
"Be careful, Mom. Don’t hurt it."
"Why, look here, Yeshu. The stinger’s all gone. You must have knocked it out when you were running home, silly child."
And then he laughed. They both laughed. And then she pulled him tight once more, feeling his young heart beating against her. How she wanted to hold him forever, shielding him against the ominous and uncertain future.
But, outside the open window a bird was chirping in the late afternoon sun. Even as he hugged her again, he peeked out from her robe and watched the little bird sitting on the nearby rooftop.
"Maybe," he thought as grin came back to his face, "there’s still time for a little more play before supper."
Now Jesus was, indeed, a child. But he was not a silly child. No child, you see, is silly who runs home when they are hurting. They are not even silly to keep on running long after the stinger has fallen away and the pain is more remembered than felt. Because home is where you run when the world becomes a fearful and dangerous place. Home is where you are met with hugs, tears are gently wiped and you are surrounded by the sweet smell of love. . . .
Jesus, tall and tanned and tired, looked around the drab little room at the men who had followed him most of these past three years. John. Thomas. Matthew. And, of course, laughing loudly in the corner, Peter.
The place seemed adequate enough for the purpose. The table was spread and the elements of the Passover were carefully laid out. The oil lamps filled the scene with a kind of warm and gentle light. The distinctive smell of baked matzah and roasted lamb saturated the room with an aroma that brought back memories of other Passovers. Memories of Nazareth. Memories of home.
Home.
They needed to be told.
He cleared his throat and the conversations in the room faded to silence. For just a moment he looked at them. Each of them. One at a time.
"Don’t let your hearts by troubled. You believe in God. Believe in me. In my father’s house there are many places to live. If this were not true, I would have told you."
Now for the hard part.
"I have to go away."
A few eyes glanced around in surprise and confusion. Others just looked toward the floor, trying to hide the fear they suddenly felt.
"Yes, I have to go away, to prepare a place for you. But if I go, I will come back for you. Each of you. So that we can be together. Forever. At home."
They would need this promise of a waiting home. The world is really not such a beautiful and lovely place as it appears through the eyes of a child. Suffering and loss and discouragement weave an kind of pattern through much of our lives. As it would for those men who gathered with Jesus in that upper room.
Fox’s Book of Martyrs records that Matthew was killed with an ax.
Thomas was thrust through with a spear.
Philip was whipped and then crucified.
For each of them these words of home must become central in all their hopes and dreams. Home that is more than a memory of something past, but a promise of something future. An absolute promise that tomorrow, some tomorrow, when there are no more tomorrows, that we’ll finally be home.
This hope, this tomorrow, reaches into today and changes people. Strange things happen. Old people laugh like children. Tired people find new strength. Weary people mount up on wings like eagles. And we somehow find ourselves homesick for a place we’ve never been.
Look at the songs our great grandparents generation left for us to sing, "There’s a land that is fairer than day," "What a fellowship, what a joy divine," "Beyond the sunet, O glad reunion, with our dear loved ones, who’ve gone before, In that fair homeland, we’ll know no parting, beyond the sunset, forevermore."
They remembered where they had never been, they remembered what they had never experienced, they remembered tomorrow as fervantly as some of our remember and hang on to yesterday. Some of you here have be walking along and stepped on a bee. Maybe not a honeybee, but you’ve felt another kind of stinger. You’ve lost a loved one, you’ve buried a child, you’ve see your marriage disintergrate, or people you love get hurt. The stingers that pierce our hearts are so much deeper and more painful than stepping on a bee. We pull back in pain, try to hold back the tears, and feel inside us that urge, that eternal urge to run home as fast as we can and bury ourselves in hugs and be surrounded by the sweet smell of love.
And that’s just what happened. Matthew ran right home just as the blade tore into him. The same place Thomas ran as the spear did its deadly deed. John Hus ran home just as the flames lifted his soul to freedom.
Home.
Where we are greeted by hugs and love and every tear is wiped from our faces.
And slowly, instead of our days being counted as distancing us from our births, they begin to be counted as nearing us to our homes. Long before we ourselves are brought there, the overwhelming certainty of it somehow allows us to endure things which we had thought unendurable. Like a child with a stinger in her foot, finally cresting the last hill, and coming, at long last, within sight of home.
And just as they got there, they looked down at their feet, and the stinger was long gone.
[1 Corinthians 15:55, 52-54] "Where, O death, is your victory?
Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all die, but we will all be changed -- 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. . . . Then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory."
"Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?"
"Onward to the prize before us! Soon His beauty we’ll behold, soon those pearly gates will open, we shall tread the streets of gold" . . and be finally and forever home.
