Renewing the Spirit | Country Roads, Take Me Home
Article by Reverend RB Moore
In June of this year, during the World Cup, Team USA defeated the Australian team 2-0 in soccer (futbol). After the game a song by John Denver began to play over the loudspeakers. The crowd began to sing in unison,
“Country Roads, take me home, to the place, I belong” …
Perhaps the song has become internationally famous because it strikes a responsive chord with millions and millions of people worldwide. In a similar way, a sense of home may have also tugged on the hearts of many of the Hebrew people being held in captivity in Babylon over 2,500 years ago.
In Jeremiah 31, many of the people of God long to leave Babylon and go home to Jerusalem. The prophet makes several promises to the people of God, both then and now, who wish to go home. Here’s the first promise.
Reconnecting with family (or close friends) brings us back home. We see in Jeremiah 31:9, God declares … “for I have become a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.” In the days of Jeremiah, God the Father was leading his spiritual children back home.
In “The Wizard of Oz”, Dorothy wants to go back home to see her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry. In “Peter Pan,” the Darling children, Wendy, Michael, and John want to go home to be with their mother. Reconnecting with our family (or best friends) brings us to a place called home.
But what if we cannot go home physically and reconnect with family or friends? Sometimes a person in the military is stationed overseas. What then? Hear the good news! Going home includes our mental faculties, also.
Believe it or not, a surprising Christmas Truce took place in 1914 during World War I. Approximately 100,000 German, French and British soldiers put down their weapons, entered No Man’s Land, and began sharing photos of their families and sweethearts back home. They could not physically return home. But in their memories, they returned to their homes.
Now reading between the lines in Jeremiah 31, in Babylon, not everybody back then went home. It had been 70 years since the elders had been in Jerusalem. Surely some of these elders chose to stay in Babylon because of their physical impairments. Still, in their minds they were free to go home. In a similar way, we too may experience a faraway home in our memories, our dreams, or in our imaginations.
Plus, Jeremiah promises us that we may go home as our hearts are lifted to new heights emotionally. God promises in Jeremiah 31:13 … “I will turn their mourning into joy” … We are at home when our grief translates into celebration.
Let me paint this emotional reversal with word pictures. Going home means our deep sadness will be morphed into a festive celebration, like a funeral on a Monday and then a birthday party on the following Saturday. Or when our broken heart doesn’t hurt day and night, and we laugh at a toddler taking her first steps, we’re on our way home.
There’s at least one more promise about going home that’s emphasized in Jeremiah 31. We may also go home spiritually. For it’s clear that those in captivity were heading to Jerusalem, the spiritual center of their Hebrew religion. We are at home when we touch the center of our faith.
Speaking of a spiritual homecoming, once there was a boy who had an abusive dad. However, when the dad contracted cancer, he made an amazing about face. Through faith in Christ, he became a new person. His son watched his dad repent and come home to God.
Eventually, the father died and the son was left with the challenge of forgiving his dad. In time, he also came home spiritually as he forgave his dad. The experience led him to write an inspirational song called, “I Can Only Imagine.”
In 2018 this boy, now a young man, Bart Millard, released his testimony in a movie by the same title. Yes, it’s true. We may come home spiritually in a deeper relationship with God, the center of our faith. Thanks be to God. Amen.
