The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head
What did Jesus mean?
Whatever He meant, if we think we can escape Scot free from having nowhere to lay our heads…we’d better think again. I hope I can explain.
Probably since reading the New Testament seriously in my mid-teens (often when I should have been attending to my homework I should add!), I’ve thought of this statement by Jesus as describing his lifestyle whilst ‘on the road’, preaching.
Jesus may have had a house in Capernaum ‘he came and dwelt in Capernaum’ Matthew 4 v 13 having been rejected in his hometown, Nazareth.
He grew up in Nazareth attending the local synagogue on the Sabbath from childhood for religious services, weddings, funerals, bar-Mitzvahs, and so on. But once He stood up and said ‘The Spirit is upon Me…’ (Luke 4) he was bustled out of the synagogue, the congregation wild with anger, took his to the top of the hill above the town ready to hurl Him to his death on the rocks below…probably with His horrified mother, brothers, and sisters watching on…astonished! Extraordinary behaviour from their neighbours and friends.
So he moved to Capernaum, ‘And leaving Nazareth, He came and dwelt in Capernaum’ Mt 4 v 13. How long He was welcome in Capernaum is uncertain. All went well until, in the synagogue, he healed a man with a withered arm on the Sabbath. The scribes and the Pharisees that were present were ‘filled with rage’ and began to plot against him.
In one town, Nazareth, all was well until He spoke. In the next, Capernaum, all was well until He healed on the Sabbath.
And leaving Nazareth, He came and dwelt in Capernaum
Switching from Jesus to Abraham for a few paragraphs:
If we are true believers, we are ‘of the faith of Abraham’.
Maybe in his childhood, the scripture doesn’t make this explicit, but at some point, God spoke to Abram (later Abraham) ‘Get out of your country, from your family, and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you’ Gen 12 v1.
His father seemed to have the same vision, to leave Ur and travel to Canaan, but he settled in Haran a few hundred miles short of Canaan.
We are not to settle just short. Just as Abram had to leave his father’s house. His family. From whom he had received everything. It is the same for us. Sometimes we have to, whether we are rejected, like Jesus at Nazareth and Capernaum, or whether we set out alone, like Abram at Haran.
In Israel, there were three feasts that the men, if possible, had to attend in Jerusalem each year: Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles.
In English evangelical or ‘charismatic churches’ whether found in ‘streams’ or historic denominations, like the CofE or Baptists, or independent churches, see the first two feasts, Passover and Pentecost as part of the New Testament, but not Tabernacles. Not yet, that is.
In simple terms, evangelical and charismatic churches would see Passover fulfilled in Christ; the original Passover, enabling the Jews to escape from Egypt under Moses in the exodus, acting as a ‘model’ of the true ‘Passover Lamb’ – Jesus. As John the Baptist cried out, ‘Look! It’s the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world’ pointing at Jesus. Through the true Lamb of God being sacrificed and His blood being shed, we too make our exodus from the slavery of sin into redemption and freedom through Christ.
The Day of Pentecost has two New Testament passages that explain how the New Testament (or New Covenant – the terms are synonymous) only functions when the gift and baptism in the Holy Spirit is received. In John 7 Jesus cried out ‘If anyone is thirsty, come to Me and drink…out of His heart shall flow rivers of living water’ This He said concerning the Spirit whom those believing in Him would receive’ and then in Acts 2 ‘When the Day of Pentecost had fully come…they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and speak with other languages as the Spirit enabled them’. True Christianity is infused and propelled by the Holy Spirit. Many evangelical and denominational churches rejected and still reject this forcing those who receive the Spirit, as Jesus promised, to experience for themselves the truth of the verse ‘the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head’, His experience has become theirs.
But what about Tabernacles? Tabernacles is fulfilled in Christ s much as Passover and Pentecost, and therefore it should be as integrated into our faith and church experience as much as Passover and Pentecost. When the Jews celebrate Tabernacles there are some features that survive to this day.
1. They meet under a roof with overlapping branches with gaps that lets the light in
2. Food and drink, and, ceremonially bread and wine, is passed round
3. They remember the time in the desert, when they lived in tents, temporary dwellings.
They were together. In our very individual-based culture, ‘freedom’ is a treasured value, including freedom of speech, the freedom of assembly, and freedom of worship – freedoms that were hard won. But the New Testament speaks of three baptisms: 1. Baptism into Christ – God taking us out of Adam and planting us in Christ (e.g. Romans 6 v 3) 2. Baptism in the Spirit – Jesus is the Baptiser in the Spirit. We are plunged into the Spirit (Acts 2) 3. The Spirit baptises us into one body. This is a Holy Spirit operation (1 Cor 12 v13)
It is the last of the three that we resist; the flesh demanding its illusory rights of independence when our life is the life of Christ. But if we yield and have faith in this truth, we will find ourselves closely knit, grace flowing from one to the other, together under a roof with holes letting the light in i.e. the presence of God. We become a replica of Jesus, ‘the word became flesh and tabernacled among us’ John 1 v 14 but not as single operatives.
Does this mean endless ‘fellowship meetings’ with coffee and donuts or church picnics?? No. Heaven forbid. Was Jesus like this? No. He was among the people, tax collectors, fishermen, radicals, the rich and the poor, men and women, children, believers and unbelievers, lawyers and politicians, lepers and the demon-possessed, the sick and the well, Jews and Gentiles. Our fellowship is in spirit…and sometimes we’ll meet. One moment he was a baby in a feeding trough, and on another occasion feeding 5000. In public view one minute and insignificant, or hidden, the next.
We cannot settle a few hundred miles short of the Promised Land, in our own Harans
But when we meet, as Paul said to the Corinthian church, ‘whenever you come together, each of you has a song, a teaching, a tongue, a revelation…’ in other words it’s a meeting with God who, as Paul had previously taught, has poured out His Spirit and distributed His diverse gifts: words of wisdom, knowledge, faith, healings, miracles, prophecy, discerning spirits, tongues, and interpretation, therefore ‘whenever you come together’ these things are the norm. God the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit are at work…we are not in charge. Leaders facilitate Tabernacle-style meetings and living. Leaders in plural. Elders. The New Testament knows nothing of one-man (or one-woman) leaders. Or a pope. Or anyone rising up to ‘run’ the meeting, or the church. It’s only a spiritual oxymoron that thinks they are better at running meetings than the Spirit of the Living God.
The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.
We cannot, must not, settle for either for a ‘Passover-only’ Christianity, or a ‘Passover + Pentecost only’ Christianity. We cannot settle a few hundred miles short of the Promised Land, in our own Harans. We must press on.
Lastly, we press on for what?
‘To Him be glory in the church in all generations’ Ep 3 v21.