HOMELESSNESS

HOMELESSNESS

"Teacher, I will follow Thee whithersoever Thou go." Matt. 8:19

"The foxes have holes, and the birds of the heaven have nests; but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head." Matt. 8:20

We call this impulsiveness.  Would that there were a great deal more impulsiveness of this kind in the world today! May God give us a new baptism of emotion! Here was a man who laid bare his heart to Jesus Christ; and to whom, therefore, Jesus could lay bare His heart. This He did in the unveiling of His poverty. He looked at the man and said, "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the heaven have nests; but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head." (Matt. 8:20) That was heart answering heart. When a man out of his heart said, I am going to follow Thee, Lord, the Lord told that man what He did not tell to every one —the secret of His poverty, the secret of His homelessness. Someone has written about the blessed poverty of Christ. There is no such thing as blessed poverty. Poverty was part of the curse He bore, the curse that rested upon humanity on account of sin. It was part of His sorrow, and He told this man of His sorrow of homelessness. His homelessness and poverty was the result of the curse and mans sin.

Yet this is not the deepest note. This scribe, impulsive, daring, had undoubtedly been moved by the physical miracles; and it seems to me that Jesus not merely told of His own personal poverty, but uttered a great word revealing His ideal of life. He called Himself the Son of Man. It was Christ's favorite description of Himself; He seems to have loved it. It is on the lips of Jesus an illuminative word, standing for humanity as true to the ideal. It would seem as though Jesus looked at that scribe, captivated by His words, impressed by His works, and said to him in effect; for what are you coming after Me? Do not forget that the Son of Man is homeless in this world. The ideal Man in the midst of such conditions as I am in, and as you will be in, if you follow Me, will have no anchorage here. "The foxes have holes, and the birds of heaven have nests, but the Son of Man," the Master of the new order, the King of the new Kingdom, in the midst of present conditions, can have no home. Thus, to the man who bared the deepest thing in his heart, Christ revealed the cross. Not Christ's Cross for the man; that is not revealed here; but the man's cross, if he would come into the Kingdom and into power. To him Christ said, everything must be lost. You must be homeless if you would be with Me. Every tie that binds you and hinders you and chains you must be dropped. Men who are coming after Me wherever I go must come to homelessness, must understand that there is no rest until the Kingdom is built; the Son of Man can only be homed in the very Bosom of God.