Jesus at Home

I have a note in my bible next to Matthew 9:10 that tells me that the Revised Version margin says, “He reclined in the home.” In the Greek that is the usual idiom for, “at home.”

It is a reminder that there is a whole world in a word: in the colour of an adjective, the tense of a verb, or the turn of a preposition. The idea that Jesus felt “at home” in that situation sent me into a reverie.

It wasn’t his house; it was the dwelling of Levi, the quisling Jew who had become a tax-collector for the hated Romans. Jesus was “at home” THERE. But somehow he was at home anywhere. He was a “land man”, yet he was also “at home” on the water – he could even go to sleep during a tremendous storm. He was “a rustic”, yet he was “at home” in a city. He was “at home” in the lonely place, yet he was equally “at home” among the crowds, where “ the common people heard him gladly.” He was “at home” in the houses of the rich, yet he was equally at home in the dwellings of the poor, with no artificial “condescension.”

We must ask, “Why?” The answer is – His Father was at home everywhere, because the Father was everywhere. And so Jesus was “at home” everywhere too.