We're Heading Home

Holy Week

A year ago last fall my wife and I had a wonderful weeklong cruise on a ship up along the eastern side of Canada. We visited the Canadian maritime provinces, went down the St. Lawrence river to Quebec City and stayed in a comfortable timeshare apartment for a week. From there we flew back home.

Home! How good it was to be home! Canada was great. We really enjoyed the visit, but the people spoke French, a language we don't understand. Their customs and even their food are quite different from ours. We didn't belong there. It was great to be home!

Next Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week, that week when the church focuses on the events leading up to Christ's suffering, death and resurrection. In that first Holy Week our Lord celebrated the Passover with his disciples. During the meal Jesus told them He was going home to his Father's house to make preparations for their coming as well.

"Let not your hearts be troubled," Jesus said. "Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going." 

Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?"

Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him." - John 14:1-7 ESV

Just before these words we read of Judas leaving on his dastardly mission to betray the Lord. After he was gone, Jesus urged the disciples to love one another and then told them he was going somewhere they could not follow, at least not yet. Peter wanted to go with him, even promising he would lay down his life for Jesus. Jesus soberly told Peter that before the rooster crowed in the early hours of the morning he not only would not lay down his life for Jesus. He would deny three times that he even knew him. What a troubling prophecy.

But, said the Lord to both Peter and the others, "Let not your hearts be troubled. You believe in God. Trust me as well. I am going away, but I am going to my Father's house to prepare a place for you—even you who will forsake me."

Now what exactly did Jesus mean by his Father's house? In the OT Bible the phrase father's house can refer to two things:

• The dwelling in which one's father lives. So Abraham, in seeking a wife for his son Isaac, sent his servant back to the land of his kindred and his father's house in the city of Nahor (Gen. 24:7-10). The servant's journey was successful. He brought back Rebekah and she became Isaac's wife. 
• But the father's house (Bayith Abi) in the Abraham and Isaac story also refers to the extended family, the relatives, the kindred and kinsmen (mowledeth), as well as in the later story of Rachel and Leah (Gen. 31:14-16) and other stories. 

This is picked up by the Lord Jesus when he promised Peter and the other disciples,

Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. - Mar 10:29-30 ESV

Even in this age our Lord provides family, people bound to us by a common faith and rebirth by the power of the Holy Spirit. We all have the same Father in heaven and Jesus is our Brother. We are family. And in the age to come, after the great resurrection, it will be even better. All the joys of really knowing one another, sharing a common background, speaking the same language and being bound together as brothers and sisters and members of the same family will be ours forever and ever. All this Jesus has prepared for us by his life, suffering and death upon the cross of Calvary.

But there's more . . .

Will Our Children Have Faith?

One of the most vivid memories of my childhood is an experience I had with my Grandpa Henry on the back porch of his and Grandma's large farm house. He was quite weak, because, as I later learned, he was dying of cancer. My mother, father, sister Elaine and I lived in a small house across the highway from  Grandpa's place. As a seven year old it was easy to walk over for a visit.

Grandpa was a very pious German Lutheran farmer. He regularly read his German Bible and would lead his family in prayer during and after meals. And he loved the hymns of the church. That is why he was so concerned about teaching me in those final weeks of his life. The hymn he taught me is one that I shall never forget, a hymn that pulls up images of sitting next to him to recite and sing it together. Of course, it had special meaning to him since these were his final days.

Here are the verses of Abide With Me, a most beloved hymn, based upon Jesus' walk with the two disciples on the their way to Emmaus on the eve if that first glorious Easter Sunday (Luke 24:13-35).

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
the darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day;
earth's joys grow dim; its glories pass away;
change and decay in all around I see;
O thou who changest not, abide with me.

I need thy presence every passing hour.
What but thy grace can foil the tempter's power?
Who, like thyself, my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.

I fear no foe, with thee at hand to bless;
ills have no weight, and tears not bitterness.
Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if thou abide with me.

Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes;
shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.
Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee;
in life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

I need Thy presence every passing hour.
What but Thy grace can foil the tempter's power?
Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.
Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

Learning that hymn at my Grandfather's side, together with other childhood experiences of living, praying and worshipping within a pious Christian extended family undoubtedly shaped and formed me. From early childhood I knew that I believed and trusted in Jesus. As the years passed I also came to believe I was being called to serve Him as a pastor and teacher. 

All this causes me to ask about today's children, my children, grandchildren and now my own great-grandson. How are they being shaped and formed? Together with John Westerhoff, a Christian educator of my own generation, I ask, "Will our children have faith?" 

In some of my next posts I want to explore some possible answers to that question.