Hang on!

Hark, the voice of Jesus crying,

"Who will go and work today?

Fields are ripe and harvests waiting;

who will bear the sheaves away?” (LSB 826)

It is Father’s day and I am sitting at home with the kids doing my vocational duties as wife and mother. My husband is in a town 6 hours away and wont be back home until the festival day is over. My own father is way too far away and I don’t even know when I will get to see him again. I do what I can but I can’t help but feel sorry for where I am at.

I try to turn my attention to something else and I put on my home congregation worship and watch on-line. The hymn “Hark, the Voice of Jesus Crying” was the hymn of the day and all I could think was; “I want to go home!” I used to love that hymn! I used to feel convicted, compelled, and called when we would sing that hymn, now I feel the weight of the law. Living over seas and doing my best each day to keep two little children alive and survive the demands of living within the Church, I would say I feel burdened more than called. 

It is a wonderful thing faith is not based on our feelings. It has been over two years now since the last time I have been able to see my family and every day the news paints my home in such a way that makes me wonder what I will be coming back to when and if I do get to come home. With each passing day it becomes my desire to do just that; “go home.” 

I confess that when I listen to sermons I often get lost in the text and dissect it in my head; my poor husband is well acquainted with this flaw. It is a flaw from studying theology and sometimes a saving grace to be able to preach law and gospel to my own soul. Today the text talked about the demon possessed man who was healed by Christ and sought to follow him as a response to being healed. Christ’s response was; “Go home.” Obviously there is more to that text but that was what my heart and mind clung to. “Go home.” Why were those the words my mind spoke during the great missional hymn and the same spoken in the Gospel? Perhaps because it is what we all need to hear in one way or another. 

Recently I have been crying at communion more and my ever mounting list of prayers has been reduced to “Come Lord Jesus! Please Come and take us home!” The fields seem as though they have been taken over with thorns, the hired help is at a loss for what is the most important task at this point and we would take a simple word of comfort and good news to our heavy hearts as opposed to a command of “Work! Work more! Keep working!” (cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is a desolate waste -Is. 6:11). Home looks really good.

 Perhaps what we all need to hear is; “hang on!” I am starting to think that in this day and age, what we need most is to hold on tight to Jesus because the boat is rocking and the waves are crashing. There is precious little that we can do apart from clinging to Jesus because in the end, it is Jesus who will bring us home. No enlistment, no quota, you are probably doing enough if all you can do is fix your eyes on Jesus, and that is your witness. Struggling though life, though doubt, through troubles and turmoils while focusing on Jesus is enough to shine a light in a darkened world. 

Home is near, and Christ is nearer. Hang on to Him, it is enough. 

2 Corinthians 5:1-4

Our Heavenly Dwelling

For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, 3 if indeed by putting it on[a] we may not be found naked. 4 For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.