A scribe, an expert and teacher of the Law, came to Jesus and said to him, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus replied, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head."

At his birth there was no room for his mother Mary at the inn, so when she gave birth they laid him in a manger, a rough hewn, feeding trough for animals.

To escape Herod’s scourge and Rachel weeping for her children, Joseph and Mary took Jesus and fled to Egypt, no more a home than a lonely stable in Bethlehem.

After Herod’s death they moved to Nazareth, a town so despised that Nathaniel would ponder years later, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Even in this small, impoverished town, growing up in his parents' home, Jesus had nowhere to lay his head.

On the Feast of Passover the boy Jesus—this Lamb of God—went to Jerusalem for the festival with his parents. On their way home his parents realized that Jesus was not among their relatives travelling in the caravan back to Nazareth. They hurried back to Jerusalem and searched for three days—frightened, frantic, panicked. Finally, they found Jesus in his Father’s house—but still nowhere to lay his head in a temple of stone.

At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus after being baptized and hearing those reassuring words, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased,” was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil—again with nowhere to lay his head.

Over three years Jesus traveled, never staying in one place too long, a vagabond, homeless, and all along with nowhere to lay his head.

I find it more than significant that this word to lay or bow—while occurring in many other places in the New Testament with the meaning of bowing one’s knee or bowing to the ground—is found in only one other place where it’s joined together with the word “head” forming the phrase “to lay one’s head” or “to bow one head.” After Jesus shouted out from the cross with a loud voice, “It is finished,” he gave up his Spirit and “bowed his head.” From his birth until this final moment, Jesus had no place to lay his head—until on the cross—that we might find a final place to lay our head.

And although later this evening I will lay my head—as will you, there is this wistful longing to be finally and truly home to a home we’ve never been. And so we too are vagabonds, homeless, with nowhere—really—to lay our head. . . save in his tender grace, his comforting love, and his all forgiving mercy—until he comes.