It was Christmas 1943, and America’s most popular crooner, Bing Crosby, recorded one of the most beloved Christmas songs ever written, “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” Since then, this song has become a favorite carol, turning hearts and minds toward being home for Christmas with the family they hold dear.
But did you know there was a famous Christmas at which no one was at home? Everyone who participated in that Christmas—the very first Christmas—was away from home so that you and I could find our way to our eternal home in heaven—and celebrate the Christ of Christmas forever!
When that first group of people gathered in Bethlehem, all of them had left home. They didn’t realize their gathering would be immortalized and celebrated every year for the next 2,000 years, but it has been. Remembering their absence from their homes reminds us that we are also away from our true, eternal home this Christmas. With each Christmas celebration, the Lord’s return draws nearer as does our arrival at our own heavenly home.
Who was away from home?
Away From Home: Mary & Joseph
When Caesar Augustus declared that a census should be taken, the expectant parents were forced to leave their home in Nazareth and make the slow, arduous journey to Bethlehem, the home of Joseph’s ancestors. The arduous fifty-mile journey probably took them most of a week. With frequent stops for Mary to rest, the young couple was perhaps one of the last to arrive in the City of David. The stable where they took shelter was not their home, but it was where the prophet Micah had predicted they’d be on the world-changing night of the first Christmas.
Away From Home: The Angels
They left their heavenly home to come to the sky above Bethlehem to announce the birth of Jesus to the shepherds. How different earth must have seemed to them! And how they must have wondered about the way the King of heaven and earth was being introduced to His future earthly subjects—born in a stable, cushioned on straw, swaddled in rough linen, and attended by humble shepherds. They knew this was not the home they or their King was used to, but they praised God nonetheless as they proclaimed His birth.
Away From Home: The Shepherds
And the shepherds to whom the angels made their announcement were the next not-at-home group at the first Christmas.
They were the closest to home, being near Bethlehem, where they kept watch over their flocks in the fields through the night. But even the shepherds left that assignment as they rushed into town to find the birthplace of Israel’s new King.
Away From Home: The Kings
…it was some months, perhaps even years, later when a group of Magi made their way to the house where the young family was then staying. They were the farthest from their earthly home—hundreds of miles—but came out of a sincere desire to acknowledge the birth of the new King that the Hebrew Scriptures had foretold and the star had pointed out.
Away From Home: Jesus
The last person we have to note who was far, far from His home was Jesus Christ Himself. His absence from His heavenly home and presence in a stable in Bethlehem is history’s greatest mystery—and the cause of the first and all subsequent Christmases.
All we know is what the apostle Paul tells us—that Christ came to earth “in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:7). What a glorious condescension was His leaving His home to come to earth! He left the glory of His heavenly home and made His home on earth for our sakes. This is the heart of the Gospel. The fact that He left His heavenly home makes it possible for us to look toward our own heavenly home with Him in the future.
You will no doubt hear someone sing “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” over the next few weeks. When you do, I hope you’ll think of two homes.
Home Sweet Home
First, I hope you’ll enjoy the love of Christ to the ultimate as you gather with family and friends. I hope your home will be a reflection of the joy and peace that comes from knowing Christ. It’s only because He left His heavenly home that we can enjoy His love and presence in our own homes this Christmas season.
Secondly, I hope your thoughts will go beyond being at home on earth this Christmas. As blessed an experience as that is, it is only a foreshadowing of the real, eternal home toward which we are moving every day.
When He left earth, Jesus said He was going to prepare a new home, a mansion in His Father’s house, in which we will dwell for eternity. That’s what Jesus Christ accomplished for us by not being at home for that first Christmas. He sacrificed so that we might live forever. He gave up the pleasures of home to secure a home for us for eternity. He traveled and endured the discomforts of life on earth so that our earthly pilgrimage might one day be ended. He established the first Christmas so that we might celebrate the benefits of Christmas forever. That’s the true meaning of being home for Christmas.
May you find yourself in a home filled with the wonder of Christ’s love this Christmas, and may your heart be eternally grateful for those who left home so you can find your way home forever.
