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My passport arrived in the mail today, thus validating my very personhood, or at least my very citizenship. I had to go through quite a few steps to obtain the document, from filling out forms to submitting a dreadful portrait to standing in a lengthy Post Office line to paying a substantial fee. (All in all, though, the process was actually easier than obtaining a Pennsylvania driver's license, but that's another story.)
As I look at the official ID with its stately blue leather-like cover, I think about what it will allow me to do: pass freely from our nation into another. It will allow me to take in the sights and the sounds, the commerce and the culture, the trends and traditions of a foreign country. A far away land. An exotic locale. Like Canada. Maybe more importantly, though, the passport will allow me to return from another nation home again. These days, they say, being without a passport is like being poor Dorothy Gale, stranded somewhere over the rainbow, but without the ruby slippers. There's no place like home, but here on earth, you've got to prove you're from Kansas before you can go back! Home. Over the course of the last year, it's become easier to remember my zip code as 18017 instead of 53714. It's be-come easier to remember my area code is 610 instead of 608. I'm not sure that I completely blend in with the Bethle-hem milieu (a stranger pegged my Wisconsin accent the other day when I asked for pop), but I think I'm making progress. The thing is, though, in spite of what my current address is, or what my passport indicates, this place I reside isn't really my home. Philippians 3:20 reminds me that my "citizenship is in heaven." I don't know what the zip code or area code is for God's place. I do know that the only documentation needed to cross the border is the love of Jesus Christ. (God's immigration laws are laced with grace!) Where do you hold your citizenship? And what does that mean for you?
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| At the Border Crossing, |
| Pastor Chris |