That Chris Rea song

Thomas Wolfe said you can't go home again. 

Sir Henry Bishop wrote home sweet home. 

Tomorrow i'll find out which is more appropriate.

It seems almost unbelievable to me that it's over five months since i was in England, and over four since i saw my family. It really has gone by in a flash. In an odd but very real way it feels funny to talk about somewhere else as home. I've really fallen in love with eastern North Carolina, a place totally unlike any other. That really wasn't in the plan. But it's happened. I remember walking along the canal in Reading with Sean, what seems like a life time ago and telling him that however much i'd fight it there would come a day when all i wanted to do in the world was to pack up and come home, that i'd just want to sit in the kitchen at my parents house, read the paper and talk to my mum as she did the ironing.

That day never came. I've never really been homesick. Which hopefully will make going home for three weeks a lot easier.

It'll be odd though. I'll expect it to be as it was on 10th July when i left. But it'll be 19th December. Relationships will have been forged and broken, people will have grown up and stumbled, friends will have moved, i'll no longer have a place where i used to belong.

But thats really ok. I'm supposed to be here. It's hard, and lonely at times, but i wouldn't swap the opportunities i've had at church here, and i certainly wouldn't swap how close i am to Rachel for anything in the world. It'll feel like half of me is missing when i leave without her. This is also good. 

And you know what, i'll never really come home. Not until Jesus returns or i die. Then i'll enter Heaven, the world of love. With no goodbyes, no curtailments, no broken relationships, no awkward moments between old friends, just joy and worship forever and ever and ever.

What i learn from goodbyes

That the Gospel is true, or better, worthwhile.

Now, of course if the Gospel was neither of these things i'd have never gone to Bulgaria in the first place, but saying goodbye to people and places that i love teaches me that the Gospel is worth doing so. If it wasn't i'd stay in a church i love, doing a job i love with people as close to me as my family. But the Gospel is worth the tears, Matthew 24:14 is true, so we press on.

That we weren't meant for broken relationships.

Look at Genesis 1-2, any broken relationships? Any goodbyes? No. The reason saying good bye to people is hard and feels wrong is because our hearts weren't made for the transitory. They were made for the eternal. They weren't made for saying goodbye, but for enjoying extended fellowship that never ends. Our sin, my sin has broken that, and for a while, a short while, we must live with the consequences. And yes, a million times yes, it's not Heaven if Christ isn't there, but i'm looking forward to not saying goodbye to my friends ever again!

That Church is a great idea.

If you care about the spread of the Gospel, you care about the local church. I would never want to be in a church that i didn't weep for the last time i pulled out of the car park, never want to follow men who i didn't hate saying goodbye to. Never want to be part of a SUPA team that wasn't more about 9AM banter than chairs. I'd never want to do this Christian thing on my own, thank God i'll never have to.

That there's a world outside England and my career.

The world's getting smaller all the time. But it's still huge. Phone calls make us feel like we're in the same room, but four thousand miles is still a long way. But the nations are out there, and they need reaching, the world doesn't stop at the Bristol Channel, there are people needing salvation everywhere, and how will they hear unless we tell them. Why not stay in Reading? Earn a few more quid and build a proper life there? Why not do a long term job, my dream job in many ways, with a mission agency i adore. Because there's a world outside of it, because God has called me there, and because my 'career' or being somewhere that people value my opinion on things ultimately doesn't matter at all. When i look into His face, i'll only ever wish i'd given Him more.

That in all these things, Christ is magnified.

No cross, no good things to be sad about saying bye to. No cross, no good things to look forward to. No cross, only Hell forever. The Gospel is worth it because Christ is worth it, moving is worth it because Christ is worth it. And something else. Through all these punctured relationships, one is unchanged. One is still the same. Christ is with me, for comfort, vision, hope, strength, joy and best of all, salvation leading to Himself. And in the final reckoning, He is all anyone needs.

Tickets and Treasures

Dance music will always remind me of the bus to Varna. As we rolled into the Black Seaside resort last summer, someone finally had enough of Bulgarian radio and put a CD in. Varna was great, the pirate ship fights, the late night walks to the Jazz Club, the 1950s Soviet block hotel, the beach, the salt and vinegar crisps. It's Varna i remember, not the bus. Varna is the treasure, certainly not the bus ride there. The bus was the means, Varna was the end. It was a tremendous end too.

Means and ends. Tickets and treasures. For too long my view of Christ was like this, too worldly, not Biblical enough. I've seen the cross, i've seen Jesus as the ticket, and Heaven as the treasure. I saw justification as the be all and end all, and the renewed relationship with God the Father as a nice added extra, icing on the cake of Christianity. It was as if my eyes had been closed when i'd been reading long passages of the Bible. I'd reduced Jesus, the eternal, immortal Son of God, in all His glory and majesty to a stepping stone, a ticket, a bus trip, a means, rather than the end. The Gospel was about me. My forgiveness, my eternal joy, my status as forgiven.

Isn't that plain awful? Seeing Christ as a means to an end, as someone who gets me somewhere? isn't Jesus much much more than that?

Yes He is, Christ, in His death on the cross is the ticket to Heaven, and Christ, the risen, exulted, glorious Christ is the end of Heaven. To see Him, enjoy Him and give glory to the Father through so doing is the end for which God created the world.

So yes, absolutly, Christ is the means, His is the ticket. 'No one comes to the Father except though me', '(Christ) died as a ransom for many.' Isaiah tells us that 'he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities...and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.' There's no getting away from the fact that Jesus is the only way to Heaven. That Jesus, by removing all that stands in our way from a relationship with God the Father, is uniquely how we can face judgment with confidence. He is the way. Yes, He is the ticket.

But what makes Heaven so good? Jesus. In John 17 Jesus prays 'Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world' Now, that could sound to us like one of the most self centred prayers ever. Jesus wants us to be where He is so that we can see His glory. Unless there's something that makes seeing Jesus glory not a selfish thing for Him to pray but a loving thing. Psalm 16 tells us that there is a fullness of joy in His presence. So in fact seeing Jesus in His glory leads us to fullness of joy. And thats what makes Heaven Heaven. Jesus is there, and we get to walk and talk and eat and most importantly of all, worship Him forever. In this we find our joy, in the self forgetfulness that comes from seeing and worshipping Jesus for who He is.

John Piper at T4G 2008 couldn't find an analogy for a ticket that become a treasure, that is the treasure. So i don't feel bad about failing to do so. But this is the Gospel. God, is the Gopsel. It's not Heaven if Jesus isn't there. He is the ticket, and the glorious, overwhelming satisfying treasure.