Leaving home can be tricky business. It can be a harmonious and natural event that recognizes a child has done the business of growing into adulthood and his or her leaving can then be rightly celebrated. Or, it can be fraught with all kinds of complications. Words can be flung at one another like well-aimed spears of animosity and venom. Stressed out parents and hotheaded kids sometimes part ways in anger and resentment. But if leaving home is difficult, then going home is equally hard.
What was it like for Jesus to go home? In the background of his first sermon among his family and friends was the subliminal message that everyone heard all too clearly: He was not the same person who had left home sometime earlier.
