Well, I’ve been back home from school for about a month now and there is always something wonderful about returning home. Everything is familiar. It is the place where we know every nook and cranny. All the roads seem familiar (if not for a few new potholes). We know the people and the flow of life. Yes, it is good to be back home.

As I was reflecting on this, I asked myself, “what makes home so great?” After all, I’ve come to know quite a few people and places in Saint Louis. I’ve found a groove with the pace of life in that city and culture. I’m starting to know many of the roads (they have a ton more potholes than we do). But it still doesn’t feel like home. In college, I spent four years in the St. Paul/Minneapolis area of Minnesota. I grew to love living there—but it was never home, either.

One of the exciting opportunities of moving somewhere new is you can, in a sense, reinvent yourself. When I went off to college I got to rebuild friendships and re-imagine the person I wanted to be. The same is true of seminary. I was given the opportunity to present myself in a way where people had no presuppositions about who I was or what I’ve done. Not that I was faking or acting to be someone I was not. It was an opportunity to mature who I was in a good sense. However, upon coming home there is no need for that. Home lets you be exactly who you are, because people would know if you tried to fake it.

The resurrection will be no different. In that day, make no mistake, we will be changed. The cruddy parts of me will shrivel in the light of God’s presence. The resurrection will be God’s moment to remake us. We will be restored and reshaped, but we will still be us in the truest sense. In that day, amidst all the rebirth, our Lord will affirm us for the person he created us to be.

I have to imagine in the resurrection we will still have personalities. Some of us will be easy-going, others more serious, and others still will never grow out of being pranksters. Above all, our eternal life will be wholly in worship to God; the One who affirms both our individuality and our perfect love in unity. In that day we will be able to, in the fullest sense, say “I am home.”

Nikolai Gibbons is a Saint John’s member who is studying for the ministry at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis. You can reach him by email at gibbons@StJohnsFC.org.