Was Jesus Homesick? (John 17:5)

Homesickness is more than being unhappy with where you are. It is a longing for the place—and especially the people—you know as home. We may become homesick for a familiar room, a childhood neighborhood, or the faces of those we love. A photograph, a song, or even a familiar scent can suddenly awaken memories of home.

But what if your home was unlike anything anyone on earth could possibly imagine? The night before His crucifixion, Jesus prayed:

And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
John 17:5 (ESV)

Jesus was not remembering a house, a city, or even a breathtaking landscape. Before there was an earth beneath our feet, a sun in the sky, or a single star in the heavens, Jesus was with His Father. His home was eternal glory.

We cannot begin to imagine what that was like. Every beautiful place we have ever seen belongs to the world He created. Every loving relationship we have experienced is only a faint reflection of the perfect love shared by the Father and the Son. Even our greatest moments of joy remain limited by time, weakness, and sin.

Jesus knew something infinitely greater. He knew the glory He shared with His Father before the world existed—not merely for thousands or millions of years, but from eternity. Heaven was not simply the place from which He came. It was divine majesty, perfect holiness, and loving fellowship beyond anything human language could adequately describe.

Then the eternal Son of God entered our world. He did not cease to be God, but He veiled His glory and took on human flesh. The One through whom the world was made entered the cries and poverty of a stable, then walked the dusty roads of His own creation. He experienced hunger, exhaustion, rejection, grief, and pain. Soon, He would be mocked, beaten, and crucified.

Knowing the glory from which He came—and knowing that His earthly suffering was nearing its climax—was Jesus homesick? Scripture never uses that word, so we should be careful not to claim more than it reveals. Yet Jesus was also fully human. He knew sorrow. He wept. He loved. And in His prayer, we hear Him speak of the glory He had shared with His Father before creation. Perhaps this was homesickness in its purest possible form. Not the restless dissatisfaction of someone who regretted coming. Not the weakness of someone trying to escape His responsibility. Jesus came willingly, and He remained completely committed to the work His Father had given Him.

Earlier in the same prayer, He said:

I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.
John 17:4 (ESV)

His mission was nearing completion. The cross stood immediately before Him. Beyond it were His resurrection, His ascension, and His return to the glory He had shared with the Father from eternity. But why would Jesus leave a home beyond anything we could imagine? Once again, Scripture gives us the answer. He came to bring us home. Later in His prayer, Jesus said:

Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory.
John 17:24 (ESV)

This may be the most astonishing part of His prayer. Jesus did not merely look forward to returning to the Father. He desired that those who belonged to Him would one day be with Him and see the glory that was His before the foundation of the world.

We cannot yet imagine that home. Everything we know comes from this world, so we picture heaven using earthly colors, sounds, and places. But the greatest wonder of heaven will not be golden streets, gates of pearl, or even freedom from suffering. It will be the presence of God.

The deepest longing for home is ultimately a longing for someone. Jesus looked toward the glory He shared with His Father—and He prayed that one day we would be there with Him. Jesus left a home beyond our imagination so that it could one day become ours. Perhaps that is why we sometimes sense that nothing in this world can completely satisfy us. We were made for more than the world as it now is. For those who belong to Christ, there is a home we have never seen but for which our hearts have already begun to long.

Are you homesick for a home you have never yet seen?

Love and trust the Lord; seek His will in your life. 

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