1 I’m but a stranger here,
Heaven is my home;
Earth is a desert drear;
Heaven is my home:
Danger and sorrow stand
Round me on every hand;
Heaven is my fatherland,
Heaven is my home.
2 What though the tempest rage,
Heaven is my home;
Short is my pilgrimage,
Heaven is my home:
And time’s wild wintry blast
Soon shall be overpast;
I shall reach home at last,
Heaven is my home.
3 There at my Saviour’s side,
Heaven is my home;
I shall be glorified,
Heaven is my home.
There are the good and blest,
Those I love most and best;
And there I too shall rest,
Heaven is my home.
4 Therefore I murmur not,
Heaven is my home;
Whate’er my earthly lot,
Heaven is my home:
And I shall surely stand
There at my Lord’s right hand:
Heaven is my fatherland,
Heaven is my home.
I believe I made it abundantly and maybe obnoxiously clear how much I disliked this hymn over the years. Melody is great but the words to me were silly. Not all of them, but the first verse desert drear stuff is troublesome. I was born here in a specific place and time to specific people and I will live out my life in a specific span of years allotted. It is a beautiful place full of wonder and glorious promise exhibiting God’s mercy new every morning. The sign of the rainbow is still in the heavens and there is still seed and harvest time. What was very good at the beginning maybe marred because of sin but it Is still pretty good. Danger and sorrow are around me at every hand and that is more clear in these grey and later days, but there are also friends and partners and brothers and sisters again showing mercies new every morning.
I know the furnishings of this place. The roof leaks and the plumbing may be iffy and there is never enough room for all the “stuff” I accumulate. That right there is an indication of my being at home here. Someone with a sense of an otherworldly home, who believes they are only renting here, doesn’t go to garage sales.
And that leads me to a very touchy subject that can get me into trouble but let’s put it out there – our response to covid shows if we believe heaven is our home or not. This is extremely complicated. There are so many facets to this,so many complicating factors. Medicine and Doctors are good first article gifts that should not be ignored or trivialized, but they are not God. The horrible possibly that our action or inaction might kill grandma was thrown into the mix and in my opinion in a panic inducing and not particularly helpful way. The concern about the neighbor, the bedrock of Christian vocation, was used as a club by anti Christian forces. The medicine of immortality meant be shared in the body by the body which becomes one cake, one loaf “together”, was vitiated or ignored by some in the body. What I’m trying to get to is at bedrock, in your heart of hearts observation that only you can make; if you locked yourself in your home, wore a mask constantly and refused human contact, and gave up the things that make life livable you proved this is your home. There are those who loved this hymn and yet refused to sing it because they were told by experts that singing in church was a sure way to spread the virus.
I know I have probably confused many. I seem to be saying that this is our home and that since God put me here I need to do my best to make it what God intended in the beginning. Our task is to avoid being so heavenly minded that we are no earthly good. At the same time we are detached enough that breaking “the surly bonds of earth” is a welcome prospect. Well let’s be clear I don’t seem to be saying it, that is exactly what I mean.
More later.
