On our way home from Christian Academy in Japan, after we had spent five days in the dormitory, my father would come to pick us up to take us home. Sometimes he came by car, driving the 60 miles often through grueling traffic, but usually by train. Invariably, if we were travelling by car, when we made the last turn onto the highway that would take us home, he would quip, “We’re on the homestretch now!” If we were returning by train, when we passed the last stop before Shin-Maebashi, he would excitedly say, “We’re on the homestretch now.” At the end of many miles of pavement or at the end of two rails of steel, home was waiting for us. When we returned home by train, Mamma would meet us at the station, waiting on the station platform. We would press our faces hard against cold glass, longing to catch the first glimpse of her, then disembarking, we would run into arms long awaiting. When we would ride home by car, as soon as we drove into our driveway, we would see Mamma looking expectingly out the kitchen window. She would rush outside and gather us into her arms as a mother hen gathers her chicks beneath her wings.

Because of those repeated weekly homecomings, the hope of final reconciliation is a longing buried deep within. My favorite movies all share reconciliation and its corollary redemption as major themes. For instance, in Babbette’s Feast, where a group of grumpy, old church folk bound in the joy-robbing chains of legalism, are won over and reconciled with each other by a gourmet meal. A French cook, who unbeknownst to them is one of France’s culinary national treasures, has prepared the meal in thanks for their kindness in sheltering her. They are determined by a mutually held pact, that they will not enjoy the meal, but as they eat, surprised by food the quality of which they could have never dreamed, they are softened towards each other until they are reconciled one to another.

At the core of our being there is a lostness. We have forgotten our way, having lost even the memory that there is home yet waiting for us! At the core of our being is a longing that will not be comforted, a longing to be reconciled at last, a deep desire to return to a home to which we have never been.

When we lived in Tacoma where my father pastored a Covenant church, he would drive us down to Olympia to see his sisters and their families. After exiting the freeway and taking a few final turns, Dad would turn onto Delphi Road. He would say with much anticipation, “We’re on the homestretch now.” Dad’s home was with his wife and children, yet there was another home, an old home, made up of his four sisters, three of whom lived in Olympia. He was at home with those who loved him. We too are home with those who love us—who we love in return.

I witnessed Mamma’s homestretch. My father wakened my sister and me early one morning around 6:00 AM. He took us into the bedroom where Mamma was confined to a hospital bed. Sitting on the cot where my father slept, we listened to some of Mamma last words to us. “Children, the Lord isn’t going to heal me from this cancer. He’s going to take me home.” When the ambulance arrived, they lifted Mamma onto a transport gurney and then into the ambulance. Mamma’s best friend, Arleen Dailey, and her husband, George, had rushed over to be with us. As they finished securing Mamma in the back of the ambulance, we climbed into the back seat of George and Arleen’s car. As the ambulance took off, siren wailing, Uncle George—as we fondly called him—followed close behind, running red lights, speeding to keep up. Several days later, my sister, Eleanor, and I sat in Mamma’s hospital room, trying not to disturb her sleep. She motioned us over, and in a heavily medicated voice, asked us to sing, “Have you seen Jesus my Lord? He’s here in plain view.” Eleanor and I lifted quavering voices—the last time we would see Mamma's smile.

I also saw my father’s homestretch when he and Mom came to visit us at North Park Theological Seminary. He was thin and gaunt, his body wasted by cancer and chemo. After a week, we took him to O’Hare airport. An airport attendant pushed him in a wheelchair out to the departure gate. He was too weak to walk, too weak to bound over fences or wrestle or chase us down in a game of touch football. I watched him as the attendant pushed him down the long gangway, holding him in my gaze until they turned the corner to board the plane.

Some of you might be thinking that I am on the homestretch now. No, I have many long stretches of pavement and unexpected turns that yet lie ahead. For some, we never see the homestretch coming, dying suddenly and unexpectedly. For others, fighting prolonged battles against cancer, heart disease, diabetes, we can see the homestretch coming, but never certain when we will make that final turn.

At the end of my homestretch is a homecoming I have been waiting for my entire life, to rush into the arms of Jesus—and now, into the arms of Mamma, Daddy, and Mom. I hate having to say goodbye! Yet, by the powerful grace of Jesus, through faith in Him, there lies a reconciliation of reconciliations, a homecoming of homecomings, a home where there will be no more goodbyes, no more sorrow or tears, no more pain.

Bound to rest in a recliner much of the time, trying to recover from the side effects of VMAT radiation, I discovered a channel on our Roku device which I can spend hours watching—when I have time. The channel is called, “The Train Channel,” which has many driver’s-view videos of train rides in Switzerland, Norway, and the United States, a few of which are nearly four hours long. My favorite is a trip from St. Moritz, Switzerland to Tirano, Italy, taken in the middle of winter. Flying over snow covered tracks, past snow draped fir trees, I have the sensation of rushing home, running home like a little boy on the homestretch, hurrying home into the arms of Jesus. The remembrance of Dad’s words, “We’re on the homestretch now,” brings me hope.