Mark 5:19 — Howbeit Jesus suffered him not, but saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee.

Most of us have a place we call home.
In December 1856, The “Prince of Preachers”, Charles Spurgeon, preached a Christmas sermon on this text. He was speaking to a congregation many of whom were young men living away from home of necessity, to find work. Nowadays, of course, social and geographic mobility mean that many of us might live and work far from that home where the heart is. We might well share the sentiments of the soldier in the song for which Kim Gannon wrote the words in the 1940’s:

I’ll be home for Christmas you can count on me. Please have snow and mistletoe and presents under the tree. Christmas Eve will find me where the love light beams. I’ll be home for Christmas if only in my dreams

But it’s not just “home” is it? We have friends and family too. Some of us are in close contact with our families, day by day. Some of us, sadly, are not. And Spurgeon’s sermon somehow intersected with a devotion from David Wilkerson on the subject of forgiveness.
Here’s what Wilkerson said:

The most difficult thing in all the world for Christians to do is forgive. For all the talk in the Church about forgiveness, restitution, and healing, very little of it is truly demonstrated. We all like to think of ourselves as peacemakers, lifters up of the fallen, always forgiving and forgetting. But even the most deeply spiritual are guilty of wounding brothers and sisters by not showing a spirit of forgiveness.

Spurgeon said:

True religion seldom encroaches upon that sacred, I had almost said divine institution called home; it does not separate men from their families, and make them aliens to their flesh and blood. Superstition has done that; an awful superstition, which calls itself Christianity, has sundered men from their kind; but true religion has never done so.

Many of us are separated from our families not just by a physical gap but by a gap caused by a disagreement over one thing or another. Sadly, sometimes it’s over our faith. Myra, when she became a believer, found a little gap opening between her and her son Scott. “You’re not my Mum anymore” he said. Sadly, it was a sign of things to come. There is a constant tension, and our “all in” Christianity is one underlying cause.
Over the years Myra and I have reached out several times, to offer help, and share God. We intend to keep trying … and keep praying. Maybe it won’t happen this Christmas but we are sometimes reminded of Augustine’s mother Monica, who prayed for him for thirty years before he was converted.
If you have a friend, or a parent, or child, or brother or sister, from whom you are somehow separated, will you think of reaching out this Christmas? Will you be the one to offer Christian forgiveness? Let “true religion” be the watchword for this Christmas.