My Home or Yours?

Mark 2:1-4
When he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at
home. 2 So many gathered around that there was no longer room for them, not even
in front of the door; and he was speaking the word to them. 3 Then some
people[a]came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. 4 And
when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof
above him; and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the
paralytic lay.

My Home or Yours?
Following up on our message this week I had a conversation with a group of people
about Jesus’ home referred to in the book of Mark. The way the gospel records it, he
was at his home. There is significant research that believes he lived with one of the
other disciples at this time and the physical house was actually the disciples.
Unfortunately, the other gospels do not give as detailed of an account, so we are left to
lean into the writer of Marks’s perspective on this matter. All we know is when the
paralytic man was let down the roof, He was home; Jesus and the paralytic.
Home is a matter of perspective. The physical place may change but “home is where the
heart is” or at least that’s what the decorations said at my childhood home. The more
accurate description for a disciple would be home is wherever Jesus is. There was a
Scribe who approached Jesus in Mathew chapter eight. He proclaimed “Teacher, I will
go wherever you go!” Jesus responded, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have
nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head”(Vs 20). There is a vast difference
between Jesus’ home in Mark versus His lack of a home in Mathew 8, but the premise is
the same. Home, for us, is wherever Jesus is.
My friend would come to our tiny home in Cairo after church sometimes. He would
always fall asleep after being there for only an hour or so. I thought it was rude until
one day he woke up and said, “I’m sorry, it feels like I’m at my own home”. Home is not
the physical location but the comfort of being in a place that’s a representation of
everything we believe home is. The paralytic man felt at home with Jesus but left and
went to his own home where surely his life was changed forever.
The message is that Jesus desires for us to feel at home in his presence, no matter the
location. He is not held captive to a location or particular space but wherever his People
call home. We may have a need physically or to just sit in his presence and listen.
Whether it’s my home or yours, there He is in the midst of those who call him Lord.

Keep The Faith,
Pastor Tommy