Seeing Home Through the Eyes of Lion

“Every night I imagine that I’m walking those streets home, and I know every single step of the way.” -- Saroo Brieley

And the Oscar goes to …

I thought La La Land was the best picture of the year. That is until I saw Lion. Not since Saving Private Ryan has a film so pierced my soul like Lion did. Whereas the horrors of war haunted me for days after seeing SPR, the story of Lion reverberated in my head for over a week. Lion is about being lost and loved. It’s about a longing for home and the journey to get there.

Lion opens by introducing us to five-year-old Saroo, who lives in extreme poverty in mid-1980’s India with his mother, brother, and sister. Saroo has a special bond with his older brother Guddu. There’s a unique love between the two, quite the opposite from the sibling rivalry we saw in 2008’s Slumdog Millionaire. One night Guddu and Saroo go out looking to earn a rupee. Guddu leaves Saroo on a vacant train platform while he goes off to find work. Saroo, bored, cold, and tired explores an empty train and winds up falling asleep. The train departs, travels for days, and finally rests half a country away in Calcutta. Little Saroo is lost and scared out of his mind. After a few close calls, he lands in an orphanage and is eventually adopted by a loving, middle-class family from Australia.

Twenty years later, Saroo has bulked up on some good down-under cooking and is about to embark on a career in hotel management. Dev Patel, who hasn’t had a haircut since Slumdog wrapped, plays the adult Saroo, who is anguished by the profound need to locate his home and find his loved ones. In the film’s second half, thanks to the Internet and Google Earth, he begins his search. As a boy, Saroo couldn’t adequately communicate the name of his rural village. So as an adult, he all he can do is calculate train speeds and distances to try to locate his home.

I’ve been trying to put my finger on why this movie so resonated with my soul. Yes, it’s heart wrenching to see a young child become so vulnerable. But I think it’s because, like Saroo, I’m equally longing for home.

We all had to leave home at one point. Sometimes it’s for college or for that post-graduation career. Maybe, it’s the moment you turned 18 or when your number came up and your country needed your service. For me, my home moved from Michigan to California during a summer between college terms. I went with the family to help unpack boxes. After one look at the Pacific Ocean, I decided that mom and dad needed my help in getting acclimated to the west-coast lifestyle.

But the home of our childhood or the residence of our parents isn’t quite the home I’m referring to. I believe we all have a desire for another home. According to Ecclesiastes 3:11, God has set eternity in the hearts of men. I believe we all, whether we acknowledge it or not, have this desire within us. It’s a desire to live forever in the house of God.

My eternal home is where the streets have no names and the houses don’t have addresses. It’s the place of freedom, grace, and peace. It’s void of disease and death, strife and separation, and greed and grief. It’s where the poison rain of politics and poverty, hunger and inhumanity is eradicated. It’s where my own messiness and failures will be washed away.

Jesus, in John 14, says he’s preparing a room in God’s house for his followers. He also says He’s coming back to take his followers there with him. Jesus was speaking these words to his disciples. He was readying them for his death and departure. He was asking them to trust him. They were afraid and worried. Jesus told them that their future was secure.

But having a place reserved for us is one thing; certainty in getting there is another. But Jesus continued by saying, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Unlike, Saroo, who didn’t have the foggiest idea on how to get home, the Christian has supreme confidence that Jesus will return and take his followers home. Jesus doesn’t simply point us toward home (“Turn left at the burning bush”). He is the map, the GPS, and the Waze to getting home.

I can relate to Saroo’s longing to rediscover his home. But he didn’t know what, if anyone, would be there waiting for him. The Christian doesn’t have that anxiety or doubt. The word for the “rooms” that Jesus is preparing refers to a place of residence, an abode with your name on it. They are rooms where fellowship with Christ will be renewed, with the presence of Jesus himself. They are rooms where he lives, in which he invites us to enter. Jesus is there waiting for us.

Saroo’s life changed when he started his journey home (not always in healthy ways however). But he had a goal and a destination. He had a vision. Similarly, the Christian who is longing for home has an eternal vantage point. As opposed to the temporal securities and comforts of our current home, our true home, our complete security, has already been built for us and is occupied by a builder waiting to give us the keys. This perspective changes our outlook on life, work, relationships, and priorities. It helps us to spend more time on giving and less time on getting. And this only strengthens my longing for what’s next. 

Unlike Saroo's, my life isn't the stuff of which movies are made. Thanks to an eternal vantage point, I'm not complaining. But I am looking forward to the sequel.