Going Home

The third verse of the hymn “Amazing Grace” ends with the affirmation that “grace will lead me home.” Home surely refers to heaven, but when I noticed this I thought it was unusual for Christians to think of heaven as home. I discovered, however, that African American spirituals often affirm heaven as home.

The spiritual based on the story of Elijah riding to heaven in a chariot of fire includes the phrase, “Swing low, sweet chariot, comin’ for to carry me home.” In the song “O Freedom,” each verse ends with: “And before I’d be a slave, I’d be buried in my grave. And go home to my Lord, and be free.” And the chorus in “Steal Away” includes this phrase: “steal away home, I ain’t got long to stay here.”

Early in the 20th century William Arms Fisher, a student of Antoin Dvorak, wrote a hymn to reflect African American spirituality using the Largo melody from Dvorak’s Symphony #9, known as the New World Symphony. The chorus affirms: “Going home, going home, I am going home.”

Modern hymns rarely refer to heaven as home, but survivors of near-death experiences often note the presence of a brilliant Light, a feeling of overwhelming Love, and that they are “home.” Here are three examples from physician and researcher Jeffrey Long’s 2016 book, God and the Afterlife.

Anna: It was the most real thing that’s ever happened to me. The life I’d been living was an insignificant experiment that I’d volunteered for. The me, the I, wasn’t Anna, the woman who’d just given birth. I was a light being—“light” in every sense. I was made of the same light as the light that shone from the clear pool in front of me. The light sensed and felt everything, thought and understood everything; it knew I was finally back home! The light was God.

Andy: The Light knows me, knows my name! Surrounding this Light form are millions of other Lights welcoming me back home. I know them all and they know me; we are all pieces of the same Light. I tell them, “It’s good to be back home.” I know we’re all home together again.

Sandy: The Light was a sparkling glowing cloud. I heard a voice in my head and knew it was God. We never talked about God at my house, and I never went to church, but I knew it was God. And I knew that this place, with this beautiful light that was God was my real home.

Going Home is about the spiritual reality of life after death, which we can experience before death, as the New Testament promises. And now thousands of those who have survived near-death are witnessing to their loss of fear of death and the Love that awaits each dying person.

With hope in God’s grace . . . Bob Traer