Longing for Home
Pastor Ian asks if we have lost our longing for our eternal home?
I received another gentle reminder this past week. Dengue has been discovered in our complex and consequently a kind representative from the National Environment Agency came by our flat to inform me of the dangers of standing water. It was an informative conversation, well-seasoned with a consistent refrain: “I’m not sure how things are in your country, but here in Singapore, we…”
For those of us who enjoy the privilege of being in Singapore on a work pass, there are often subtle—sometimes, daily—reminders that Singapore is not our home and that one day… we will need to leave.
And yet, life here is so pleasant, I very seldom find myself longing for home. I actually thought Mothers’ Day and the reminder that I have brought a sweet mum to live in separation from her children and grandchildren might stir up in my heart some nostalgic longing for home. Nope.
Regardless, beginning in Scripture and throughout Christian history, followers of Jesus have had an extensive tradition of longing for home. In 2 Corinthians 5:2—a text I actually used two weeks ago during my sister’s funeral—Paul addressed a generation of believers whose daily lives were intensely difficult and he wrote, “For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling.” We can also see this longing in the writings of the early Church leaders.
Born to pagan parents in the year AD 200, Thascius Caecilius Cyprianus, better known to us a Cyprian, became a believer and later, Bishop of Carthage. During intense Roman persecution he wrote in a pastoral letter to the believers of North Africa:
“We have solemnly renounced the world and therefore, while we continue in it, should behave like strangers and pilgrims. We should welcome that happy day of our death, which is to fix us, in our proper habitation. Who of us, if he had long been a sojourner in a foreign land would not desire to return to his native country? Who of us, when he had begun to sail there would not wish for a prosperous wind to carry him to his desired home with speed, that he might sooner embrace his friends and relatives? We must account paradise our country.”
On 14 September, AD 258, Bishop Cyprian was sent home by the sword of a Roman executioner.
Many years later, on 22 January, 1931 Sam Cooke was born. He was the son of a African American Mississippi pastor and lived during the challenging days of racial segregation. In the winter of 1950, while reflecting on 1 Corinthians 15:52, he wrote
I was born by the river in a little tent
Oh and just like the river I've been running ev'r since
It's been a long time, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will!
Sam Cooke’s song Change is Gonna Come was picked up by a secular record label and rose to number one in the American and British music charts. But change truly came for Sam Cooke in 1964. He was shot and killed in a California hotel.
My life is nothing like Sam Cooke’s or Cyprian’s or the Apostle Paul. My life is comfortable; so comfortable, that my roots have begun to sink deep into earthly soil. And I have begun to wonder. Am I a part of the first generation of a new kind of ‘Christian’ that has lost their longing for Home? And how does that impact the way I live and love?
Thomas and Julie Hamilton are two of our newest members at Grace. They, like many others God has recently led to join Grace, have been brought by the Lord, not only to find a community of care, growth and rest, but they are also brought to strengthen us through their God-given gifts and faith journey. Let me invite you to take a moment to hear of the extraordinary gift that God has given the Hamiltons, and how He has used one special life to remind them of God’s unusual affection for them, and to turn their hearts toward Home!