Then Jeremiah went to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, at Mizpah, and lived with him among the people who were left in the land. (Jeremiah 40:6 ESV)
Home
Jeremiah had been unjustly imprisoned, scoffed at for preaching God’s truth, and stripped of authority, position, and possessions. When finally released by a kind guard after Judea had been defeated and carried off to captivity, Jeremiah would have been justified in giving up and finding a safe cave to live in. He could have chosen discouragement, thrown up his hands, and given up.
But he knew his job. He found some remaining Judeans, made his new home, and got back to work.
Jesus did the same thing. Jesus was more ill-treated than Jeremiah, but never stopped His work. Jesus, more than merely bringing God’s Word, He WAS God’s Word, was laughed at, derided, and ultimately ignored. But Jesus never gave up. Jesus suffered for His message, suffered as God’s message, and suffered through God’s message. But Jesus endured to the end, through the end, and after the end.
Jesus, killed at the back door of what legitimately could be called His home, finds His people, makes us His home, and never stopped working.
And we can do that, too. When rejected, scoffed at for our faith, hated for Jesus’ sake, or ignored when speaking the truth, remember Jeremiah and Jesus.
Home is not a building. It is not even sentimentally, ‘where the heart is.’ Home is where God’s people need us. And where our work of the gospel continues. Go home, stay home, find home, and do your job… point people to Jesus.
We are peculiar, we have a permanent home.