I was born in 1961 and all my childhood took place in Pinellas County, FL. Others know it as the Tampa Bay area or Tampa/St. Petersburg/Clearwater. My parents bought a new house in a newly developing neighborhood in Largo, now Seminole, when I was just a year old. My brother was born there and is back living there, but I haven’t been back since he started repainting it. 13773 Antigua Drive has been a haven and anchoring point. Choir Christmas parties, my wedding rehearsal dinner, birthday celebrations with the grandparents and Godparents, the advent wreath, Christmas decorations, smells of schtolen bread and lebkuchen, sauerbraten and stroganoff, hot cross buns on Easter. Christmas cards on every wall of the living and dining rooms. Tent pitched in the back yard. Trees removed from age and disease; new ones planted. Tree felled by hurricane.  

You all have your own stories about the house you grew up in. The memories, the visitors, the inhabitants. The longing for home is a constant, whether we feel we can go back there or not. For some, nostalgia morphs into that aching feeling known as homesickness. We may more easily identify with the place, the house itself, but when we drill deeper, it’s not the stucco, terrazzo, and concrete (for me). The heart longs for what was: the simple ease of play, the warmth of love, security, and acceptance. Familiarity, which may come from the root family. Maybe it’s not as much feeling homesick as it is feeling heartsick. We can’t get those times back. We have moved on and away. My brother had his life, his moves, returning to 13773 after Mom died and Dad remarried. Even though the insides of the house have changed, it is still home base.

Home is where Christ rules in your heart. Nothing else can possibly be as true, as constant, as his love that inhabits us. I wish everyone would know his presence, freely offered but never compelled or mandated. Wherever else we may live and worship, his spirit is graciously given to root and ground us. When his powerful presence is alive in you, you are truly home. Within and among our journeys, transitions, and changes of address, we have the treasure in our hearts for the holiday season. No misfortune, emptiness, or homesickness can take from the incarnation of Jesus and the communion of the Holy Spirit. The unconditional love goes through walls, flesh and bone, and concrete foundation.

Pastor Art