Only if you don’t watch television, listen to the radio or read a newspaper will you be unaware that we are approaching the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing. A recent television documentary mentioned a game that was played by NASA officials in the days leading to the launch. ‘If you are stranded on a desert island which of the three Apollo 11 astronauts would be your perfect companion?‘ Some went for the scholarly Buzz Aldrin and his monumental intellect. Others spoke up for Michael Collins and the sheer quality of his character. In the end, though, it was agreed that Neil Armstrong was the man who was most likely to get you home.
There is always something emotionally powerful about the idea of ‘home.‘ Frederick Buechner has written a book entitled The Longing For Home. One reviewer described it as Beuchner speaking out of his own experience ‘to illuminate our own understanding of home as both our place of origin and our ultimate destination.‘ This comes through in the movie Apollo 13 which tells the story of that aborted mission to the moon. The astronauts gaze in wonder at the surface of the moon knowing that they will not land there. The voice of the commander Jim Lovell breaks into the moment: ‘Gentlemen, what are your intentions? I would like to go home.’
People approaching the final challenge of death sometimes speak of ‘going home.‘ They don’t mean leaving the hospital or hospice. They have experienced the power of Jesus’ promise that having passed through death to the Eternal Kingdom He is preparing a place for all those who love Him. The night before He was nailed to the cross He told His disciples that He was going home to His Father’s ‘house’. It was a house with many rooms and the promise was: ‘I am am going to prepare a place for you.’ (John 14: 1-4) When it came the time for their final breath they would find a place prepared in the Father’s house. The way to that place was to acknowledge Jesus as ‘the way, the truth and the life’. (John 14: 6) He was the One who would get them home.
A character in Robert Frost’s poem The Death Of A Hired Man describes home as ‘the place where, when you have to go there,/They have to take you in.‘ In our humanity sometimes we receive people with reservation but for those who cherish the promise of Jesus there is the assurance of the Father’s welcome for the wayward son, the place prepared, suffering giving way to completeness in Christ. And the wonder of it is, in the words of another character in the poem, home with Jesus is ‘Something you somehow haven’t to deserve.’
