Welcome home
Series: Welcome home | Bible text: Psalm 91:9
What is home? Is home simply a country or perhaps even just a house with which we associate sentimental memories? According to Psalm 91:9, the presence of God makes a place a home: «I am safe with the Lord! Yes, with God, the Most High, you have found a home.» In this sermon series, we will discover together how to come home inside, find a fulfilled life and help others discover that home.
On Sunday mornings, when I was still in bed as a child or teenager, I always heard the milking machine being started at 5.30 a.m.. Soon afterwards the «Gruss vom Bodensee» sounded from the cowshed and in between the whistling of my father. When I opened the shutters, I looked directly at the Säntis.
Such scenes have been stored in my emotional memory on the subject of «home». Or how we children «unthreaded» beans on the terrace with our great-grandmother and grandmother, or how we had rösti with cracklings, blood sausages in the original pork intestine or tripe in a fine caraway sauce after the home-made Metzgete. A few weeks later we could enjoy the smoked sausages from the fireplace.
That’s how nostalgic and transfigured the idea of home is for me. Home, by the way, is supposed to be connected with the Greek word «home». Word koimáo be related to the «put to bed«means. The place where we were put to bed has great potential to awaken feelings of home in us. What goes through your mind and heart when you hear the term «home»?
Homesickness
The painful missing of one’s homeland has a long history. The army commander Ludwig Pfyffer, who led Swiss mercenaries in the battle of Jarnac, wrote in a letter in 1569 about the death of a soldier: «[…] the Sunnenberg died from heimwe […]«Pfyffer found it worth mentioning only in passing that Sunnenberg had also been wounded. In the following period, medical papers reported on the strange suffering of Swiss soldiers stationed outside the country. The soldiers became melancholic and increasingly went AWOL. They were forbidden to sing songs from home, especially the «Kuhreigen», a well-known folk song, under threat of severe punishment. The diagnosis was «homesickness disease», also called «Swiss disease» or ’nostalgia». Homesickness» was considered fatal. The only cure was to return home.
The polymath Johann Scheuchzer assumed a physical cause. He explained this in 1716 as follows: It was due to the nature of the air here. If mountain dwellers travelled to the Netherlands, for example, there was a danger that the coarser, more oppressive sea air would plunge them into a highly dangerous fever. The air squeezed the smallest blood vessels so that the juices in the circulation could no longer circulate sufficiently. It was not until the beginning of the 19th century that the view, still accepted today, that homesickness is a psychological phenomenon prevailed. However, I also found out during my research that homesickness in children is supposed to be more the parents» problem. The extent to which this is correct remains to be seen.
Heidi, the cheerful, inquiring child of nature in Johanna Spyri’s novel, starts sleepwalking and silently crying into her pillow in Frankfurt because she is so homesick. Her luck is that the family doctor diagnoses it as a potentially fatal illness. The only cure he expects to provide relief is an immediate return to her grandfather in the Swiss mountains.
Homesickness is the insatiable longing for the environment that has shaped us, for familiarity at home. Homesickness is not only something the Swiss know. The Jews who were deported to Babylon also suffered from homesickness. Their lament sounds heart-warming: «By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we thought of Jerusalem»(Psalm 137:1). With Jesus, too, one feels something like homesickness: «Foxes have their den and birds have their nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lie down in»(Matthew 8:20).
He consoles his disciples: «Do not be afraid. You trust in God, now trust in me! There are many mansions in my Father’s house»(John 14:1f).
There are more refugees in the world than ever before. They are all people who have left their homes and are often very lonely in their new place. This uprooting combined with traumatic experiences on the run often has very negative effects on their lives. They depend on people who offer them a piece of home.
Homecoming
Home is a central theme in the «Good News». The story of God and people begins with a place. In the beginning, God created a flourishing garden as a home for man. At the end of the Bible, there is a report of a wonderful city. There, many people live together in peace, there are no more tears, no more suffering, no more loneliness, no more hardship and no more pain. The Hebrew word «Shalom» refers to that deep inner peace that makes this place a home where the heart finds its home. However, it is not the concrete city alone that is responsible for being home here, but the presence of God. It stands for a successful life and peace on all levels. There is the space where people live in peaceful coexistence with God, other people and even the world.
So the Bible talks about a home that includes other people and the world, but is still primarily characterised by God being a part of it. It is a truly paradisiacal or heavenly state. «I heard a loud voice calling from the throne: Behold, the dwelling place of God is now with men! He will dwell with them and they will be His people and God Himself will be with them»(Revelation 21:3).
The Bible verse we have chosen for our theme for the year poetically says the same thing: «But you may say: «With the Lord I am safe! Yes, with God, the Most High, you have found a home.»(Psalm 91:9 Hfa). The Hebrew parallelism shows that being safe with the Lord and finding a home say the same thing in different words.
Growing in relationship with Jesus Christ is synonymous with becoming more at home with the heavenly Father. This year we will be looking intensively at how we can make ourselves at home with God, how we can grow and feel more at home in childship in the house of God. Finding home with God has a very concrete impact on life. Those who are at home with God radiate a supernatural calm as well as an all-embracing peace and have a great power of attraction. You simply feel good in its presence.
Jesus Christ gave up his heavenly home and came to earth as a human being (Philippians 2:6f). Through his death on the cross, Jesus cleared the way for people to have free access to God’s presence at all times.
And yet – we never quite feel at home in this world. It will remain an unfulfilled longing. Billy Graham coined the statement: «My home is the sky. I only travel through this world.» He was probably inspired by the patriarch Jacob, who answered Pharaoh’s question about his age: «I have lived as a guest on this earth for 130 years – and they have been hard years» (Genesis 47:9). This is also found in Psalm 119:19: «Only a guest am I on this earth»(NGÜ). In all of us slumbers the longing for the final home – the heavenly Jerusalem. Only there will our hearts come to rest and be completely at home.
Living hospitality!
In the two words «willcomeen dahome» contains the invitation «Come home». The big question is how we can plausibly explain to other people who do not yet know this home with God that they long for it in their deepest being. The best way to do this is to make ourselves at home in the house of God.
«The Christians should look more redeemed to me. They would have to sing better songs to me if I were to believe in their Saviour.«This is how the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche judged Christians. Actually, he should have known. For Nietzsche grew up in a parsonage. After his confirmation, he attended a church boarding school for gifted children in Naumburg until his Abitur. He experienced Christian faith and Christian life at close quarters in his youth. None of this convinced him. On the contrary, he later became one of the most passionate opponents of Christianity.
Could it be that Nietzsche hardly got to know Christians who had made their home in the house of God? Did he perhaps only get to know Christianity as an institutional religion? The more at home we have become with God, the more redeemed we look. Genuinely lived childhood in the Father’s house has a convincing effect on guests.
In Tanzania, a little boy went to town to sell mango at the market. He sat under a tree and offered his fruit. He had no experience in selling yet. He was untrained and a bit shy. He sat there fearfully. The more despondent he became, the weaker his voice became. His offer found no resonance at all. Although the sun was burning hot and the people were thirsty, his beautiful mangoes did not attract any attention. He became discontented, disappointed and very frustrated. Finally, he said to himself: «If no one wants my beautiful mangoes, I will at least treat myself to one. He took a beautiful fruit from the basket and bit into it. He liked it. The juice refreshed him, ran a little down the corners of his mouth and the mango fruit spread its fragrance. His eyes gained lustre. You could tell he enjoyed it. He was enjoying his mango. The people who passed by smelled the fragrance. They saw the little man eating with relish and got an appetite. Now they grabbed it and quickly the basket was empty. The little boy now knew how to sell the mango fruit to the people.
Only when we ourselves enjoy childship in the Father’s house will we be able to convincingly invite others.
Before Jesus left the world for the invisible world at the right hand of God, he unmistakably gave us the mandate to Good news to tell all the people: «But when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, you will receive his power. Then you will speak of me in Jerusalem, in all Judea, in Samaria, even to the ends of the earth.»(Acts 1:8).
Soon the Dürrenäscher gymnastics evening will take place again. Our kids have asked if their colleagues could sleep over. It seems that a larger number of people are accumulating there. Since we don’t have as much space as we want, we have to arrange this with each other. We are practising hospitality. Hospitality is also a prominent theme in the Bible. About ten times hospitality is mentioned as a good virtue in the New Testament. It is even considered a must for people in leadership roles (1 Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:8) and is one of the five works of mercy that are criteria in the final judgement (Matthew 25:38). Every invitation to come home is a foreshadow of the glory in the Father’s house of God.
Come home! We may take the role of host and invite as many people as we like into the house where God is Father and Mother. There are no space limitations in the house of God. The Father of the house has opened his arms wide to all people.
By the way, the church is supposed to represent the way of hospitality of this God on earth. Paul declares that the church is the house of God. «But in case my coming is delayed, I am writing you this letter, so that you may know how those who are to go to the House of God belong to the Community of the living God»(1 Timothy 3:15). The house rules and culture of God’s house are to be experienced by people in the local church. Therefore, our welcoming culture is not just nice and not just a requirement of a church building philosophy. No, it is not about having as large a church as possible, but has a very direct evangelistic character. We want to represent the house of God in this world and open our arms as wide to people as the Father did in the parable of the prodigal sons.
It became clear that the new annual theme «welcome home» has a lot of potential and will hardly bore us. So that we can stay with the theme throughout the year, we give you a key engraved with «welcome home» and «Psalm 91:9». It symbolises the entrance to the house of God.
Possible questions for the small groups
Read the Bible text: Psalm 91:9
- What do you associate with home? What awakens feelings of home in you?
- Did you feel homesick in the past (or still do)? What was it like?
- To what extent do you experience the security of God as home? Do you feel at home with Him? How do you notice it?
- What does hospitality mean to you? How do you live it?
- It is our task to call other people home to God. Who is on your mind in this regard?
