Coming Home

I recently went to my home town for a wedding.  This town is also the home town to my parents and my mother’s parents.  I had my husband take me by my family’s house which was on the top of a big hill, well big if you are an eight year old. 

The first time I saw this hill as an adult I was stunned that my long, high hill had been replaced by a slight slope!  I remembered riding my bike up that hill, the difficult pumping as I doggedly pedaled home for dinner.  I remember my brothers riding down the hill in an old baby carriage and crashing on the curb, the seemingly endless run to my father one day after being stung by a bee and the many walks up and down to play with our neighbors.  What happened to my hill? 

Mark 6:4 speaks of Jesus telling the disciples that the only place prophets won’t have honor is in their home town and with their own family.  Jesus goes back to his home town and he is seen as the carpenter’s son, the brother of local residents, some may even remember him only as the boy who scared his parents by remaining in the temple when it was time to go.  Jesus was amazed at their disbelief, how could they not see who he had become, who he always was?

The reality is that if I had met anyone along the way from my hometown they would have known me only as the daughter of Bill and Sue, the granddaughter of the Curtis’s and the Alger’s.  The history of my family would be my history, the best and the worst of us would be what remained.   The ordinary everydayness of a person can be dismissed by exaggerated memories despite the fact that it may be what defines us best.

The funny thing is, as I sit here miles from that town and I think of our home at the top of the hill, it remains high.  All logic is lost to memory, the pedaling was difficult, it took forever to reach my dad and my brothers were daredevils and fearless as they cruised down the hill at breakneck speed in their homemade stroller/go-cart.   

When Christ comes home he stirs up memories of a time past, his history is their history.  To deny who his is, always was, could somehow change their story, they may have to acknowledge that the hill was a slope.  Past ideas and thoughts about people and places can be difficult to let go of, Christ revealed the truth with love; Christ continues to reveal the truth and we as a family can respond to it or deny it.

House at the top of the hill.