Homecoming

“That last thing is what you can’t get,” Sal Paradise reminds his fellow wanderers in On the Road. “Nobody can get to that last thing. We keep on living in hopes of catching it once for all.”1 This is the counsel of someone who has decided “the road is life.” The road is long enough to tempt you to believe this. It seems like there is no end in sight—that we can’t get the last thing, can’t even glimpse its end, can’t imagine rest. Despair is natural.

Running faster won’t help. Crumpling into the middle of the road and giving up doesn’t really solve anything either. And telling yourself “the road is life” over and over and over again starts to ring as a hollow consolation.

You can’t get there from here. But what if someone came to get you? You can’t get to that last thing, but what if it came to you? And what if that thing turned out to be a someone? And what if that someone not only knows where the end of the road is but promises to accompany you the rest of the way, to never leave you or forsake you until you arrive?

This is the God who runs down the road to meet prodigals. Grace isn’t high-speed transport all the way to the end but the gift of his presence the rest of the way. And it is the remarkable promise of his Son, who meets us in this distance: “My Father’s house has many rooms” (John 14:2). There is room for you in the Father’s house. His home is your end. He is with you every step of the way there.

IN THE DUOMO in Milan, built on the site of the cathedral Augustine visited so often, sitting now atop the baptistry where he was raised to new life, there is a quiet section of the church where you will see a curious sign. Marking off an “Area Reserved to Worshipers,” this sign instructs: “Please, no tourists. Do not go beyond this point except for confession.”

You reach a point on the road with Augustine where mere tourism comes to an end. You’re faced with a choice: Do you want to step in there? The next step isn’t arrival. It’s not the end of the road. To make that step won’t solve all your problems or quell every anxiety. But it is the first step of giving yourself away, arriving at the end of yourself and giving yourself over to One who gave his life for you. It is the first step of belonging to a pilgrim people who will walk alongside you, listen, and share their stories of the God who doesn’t just send a raft but climbs onto the cross that brings us back.