Rise, let us go hence! (John 14:31)

You can call the 21^st century, more than any earlier era, the age of uprooting.  That applies first of all to the armies of refugees who have no homeland anymore, no definite dwelling place, not even a roof over their head.  But in a figurative sense, it applies to almost every person today.  Also if we can imagine ourselves safe within the four walls of our house, also if we have enough to feed and clothe ourselves—even then there reigns a collective feeling: we are nowhere really at home anymore.  Not in our own home, not in a familiar, safe home port, not even in our own family.  That is not only a painful collective feeling of insecurity, but perhaps also a necessary experience.  What is our homeland?

The author Franz Kafka said it already at the beginning of the 20^th century, when the first signs of uprooting became visible: “One has to go far to find the homeland that one has left.”

The only thing to do is to get moving.  And if that does not happen literally, then in any case figuratively.  The only lasting security we can find in our restless world comes from Him who calls us to leave behind everything that was ever familiar: home, wife, parents, brothers, or children… (Luke 18:29)  To follow His call uprooted, homeless, free from all that fetters us:

“Rise, let us go hence!”

-Rev. Bastiaan Baan