No Place Like Home

Have you ever seen a picture like this one hanging in someone's home? (Hold up the wall poster.) It is their way of saying that their home is a warm and welcoming place to be. A place where they are happy.

The home has been a favorite subject of authors, poets, and songwriters since the beginning of time. Here are some examples:

Over a hundred fifty years ago, John Howard Payne wrote a song called "Home Sweet Home." The song ends with these words:

Home! Home!
Sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home,
There's no place like home!

Here are some other famous quotations about home:

• "There's nothing half so pleasant as coming home again." Margaret Elizabeth Sangsterli>
• "Maybe the best part of going away for a vacation is coming home again." Madeleine L'Engleli>
• "Home is a shelter from storms – all sorts of storms." William J. Bennettli>
• "Home is where the heart is." Pliny the Elderli>
• "Home is not where you live but where they understand you." Christian Morgensternli>
• "You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it’s all right." Maya Angelou

It's true, home is a wonderful place to be most of the time, but not always! In our Bible lesson today, Jesus went back to his hometown of Nazareth and he did not receive a very warm welcome. In his travels around Galilee, Jesus had performed many miracles and had been well-received. When he returned to Nazareth, they had heard about the miracles that Jesus had done in Capernaum and they just didn't know how they could be true. After all, wasn't this Joseph's son? How could the son of a carpenter do all of the things that they had heard about?

Jesus heard the people grumbling and said to them, "No doubt you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’ But I tell you the truth, no prophet is accepted in his own hometown."

The people in the synagogue became furious. They jumped up, mobbed Jesus, drove him out of the town, and took him up on the hill on which the town was built because they wanted to throw him off of a cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.

I doubt that Jesus was thinking, "There's no place like home" that day. It seems that no matter what Jesus did, he just couldn't seem to please the people in his own hometown.

Heavenly Father, may we welcome Jesus to make our heart his home. In Jesus name we pray, amen.