Heaven: Home or Holiday?

When I’m on vacation, I so often find it difficult to do that very thing for which vacation was made—rest. I eventually get around to relaxing; only, not right away. Indeed, it very well may take a few days before I feel as though I’m actually on holiday at all.

It seems that vacation tends to come around only after a particularly busy spell. So much is going on in life leading up to the holiday season or some specific trip that, well before the vacation itself ever arrives, it seems as though ‘just getting away’ is all I can think about. And then, when I’m actually on holiday, I struggle to fully relax and enjoy my rest because—looming just over the horizon like some brewing storm—I know that the end of the trip will eventually come, ushering me back into the whirlwind of daily life.

There is, therefore, that sweet spot somewhere along the middle of any given vacation where one finds they can properly rest. This phase is often nestled neatly after the first few days once you’ve finally settled, though far enough away from the end of the trip so as to keep your mind away from the fact that, as it is with all vacations, the time will soon come for you to return home.

And then there is that particularly curious point during vacation where, especially during long stretches away, you are actually looking forward to returning to your own things, to your own well-worn routine, and, perhaps above all, to a semi-stable diet.

It is no strange thing to grow homesick on vacation.

We are, then, hard pressed between the two: between staying and going, between work and rest, between home and holiday. To remain at rest and leisure forever seems unbearable after a time; we were created to work, and work is good. However, to go home and stay home seems equally dreadful without the prospect of another fresh vacation penciled in to break up the mundanity.

This ache in the heart speaks to something profound that has been stitched into the human soul by our Creator. As we pine between home and holiday, between rest as comfort and rest as leisure, we find our hearts merely expressing a sort of homesickness—a longing for that home, Heaven, which is the blessed inheritance of all those who are in Christ. The Lord God “has put eternity into man’s heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:11), and only God Himself can fill such a vast void. And, what is Heaven but God’s goodness, love, and glory made manifest?

Consider that Scripture itself has no trouble describing Heaven as both a place of rest, as though it were some unending vacation, and as home. Heaven is that supreme place of rest which we have only ever seen and felt from afar, and even that through whispers; never having visited this land, all the while knowing it’s where our true home rests—waiting.

So, Heaven: home or holiday? The Bible knows no such distinction.

In the book of Hebrews alone, we see this tapestry of home and holiday being intricately and intimately woven. For, on the one hand, Heaven is the ultimate fulfillment of that rest to which the Sabbath only pointed: “So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from His” (Hebrews 4:9-10). In a very real sense, Heaven—or rather, the New Heavens and the New Earth—is to be thought of as the holiday to end all holidays; the vacation to which all others dimly pointed; the ultimate rest after the ultimate busy season in life—a busy season wrought with many joys to be sure, but with many tears, heartaches, and battles over sin also.

Heaven, however, is not just a rest in the way a trip to Florida or Europe is a rest. It is also our true and lasting home. Anytime you step out your door and in through another for rest or holiday, you are also stepping away from the comforts of home to some extent. Despite what even the best hotels and resorts have to say of themselves—“A home away from home”—, the fact remains that there presently exists a wide gap between even the best home and the best holiday. Whenever you leave your home for another, you are parting with a quintessential dimension of what makes you and your family just that—you and your family. Heaven, by contrast, is the believer’s true home away from home.

After outlining the many triumphs and sufferings of the heroes of the faith in Hebrews 11, of whom the world was not worthy, “wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth” (11:38), the author then turns his gaze, and that of the believer’s, towards home:

“These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared for them a city” (Hebrews 11:13-16).

Heaven is the believer’s homeland. If you are in Christ, Heaven is not just a home, it is your home—a home cut out for you in the very living, breathing heart of things. It is where you now belong. Heaven is where your treasure is, where your family is, where your Father is, where your Savior is, and where you will forever be. Heaven is your forever home.

It is that place which in the best and the worst of times you’ve always felt a tug towards. When the days are hard, you long for the rest and comfort that Heaven affords; and when the days are good, the ache yet persists for that homeland which even the very best in life can only faintly point you towards.

One of my favorite hymns is a song you’ve likely never heard of, titled “The Homeland in Heaven.” The first and last verse are as follows:

“The homeland in heaven draws me from this earth,

The homeland in heaven alone has true worth.

Naught here stills my longing, naught can me inspire,

To dwell there forever is what I desire;

To dwell there forever is what I desire.

Farewell then, O earth, I am only thy guest,

Farewell to thy joys, from thy burdens I rest!

Thy hills and thy valleys, though wondrously fair,

Cannot with the heavenly glories compare!

Cannot with the heavenly glories compare!”

Here below, we have to contend with either home or holiday. We cannot have both at the same time, and in the long run we will have neither—not in this life, that is. For some, they cannot wait to get away from home and escape to another lavish holiday. There is always a next vacation booked for some folks. Home, for them, may be dull, mundane, and even lonely. Worse yet, home represents for some those four walls holding together all manner of sin, strife, abuse, and hate. For many, home isn’t always home, but rather just a house—and one of disarray and chaos at that. Others still may have never had either home or holiday. And, even in the very best of cases, holidays always must end and homes either change or become emptied, whether by the wane of time, the shifting of seasons, or the cold intrusion of death. Nothing stays the same—not here, at least. Farewell then, O earth, I am only thy guest; Farewell to thy joys, from thy burdens I rest!

In this world, we must dance between home and holiday, oftentimes aching for the other just as soon as we leave it behind, only to remain discontent in the end. But in Heaven, the two, home and holiday, shall be bound into one and forever remain united—indeed, growing increasingly more joyful as the time passes.

The very best of both home and holiday will take on their fullest form in the New Heavens and the New Earth. The troubles of home will be done away with, along with any fears that perhaps, one day, it may all simply disappear. The dread accompanying the end of holidays will cease, for this Day will have no end but shall only grow to be more and more wonderful, just as Christ Himself is infinitely wonderful without end. And we will work also, but our labor will be without hardship. The curse presently woven into our work will be drawn out like a loose thread in a piece of clothing, enabling all our building, writing, reading, studying, gardening, farming, composing, decorating, painting, and engineering to not only last and be completed without toil, but to endure with an eternal significance that shall not grow dim.

And, should it be the case that you aren’t particularly gifted or interested in any of these areas of work, fret not: you will have no shortage of time there to perfect many skills and crafts for the glory of God which your life here below on Earth could not afford. For my part, I hope to write many books and, perhaps, even take up an instrument—thankfully I will have endless ages for this latter pursuit, as I just may need it...

Oh! what more can be said about that place? To speak further risks casting a shade upon its great light. For God Himself said, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). We would do well to concede this point. James Renwick, a Scottish minister and martyr at the age of twenty-six, reflects on Paul’s words from 1 Corinthians when he writes:

“It would only darken the glory of it to you, for me to begin to speak of it. For who is able to describe that holy place? The privileges of it cannot be told you, neither by angels nor spirits of just men made perfect, who are now in possession of it, far less by me! Not all the angels and saints who have been in possession of it these many years, would not be able to describe it to us! But what we may say is that it is a rest without a rest. There they are for ever quit of trouble, of sin, sorrow, or misery, and there they are for ever restless in giving praise to God.”

“It would only darken the glory of it to you, for me to begin to speak of it...” 

Ah, but we must speak. We must think regularly on home. Not as an intellectual exercise, so as to rest content to wonder about its edges as though it were just another manor in the countryside. Rather, let us humbly wonder on the fact that we shall one day wander about its streets.

To think often about Heaven is balm enough for the weary soul. Nonetheless, it remains a dangerous business: to think much of Heaven risks bursting the soul asunder with groaning and anticipation, and yet there runs a danger far deadlier for both soul and body in thinking too little of our eternal home. For remember, those whose minds are most occupied with thoughts of Heaven also tend to be among those whose hands are busiest here below with the work of that holy place.

Until we reach our rest of home and holiday, our duty is to serve. Heaven—with all its countless joys, wonders, and comforts, Christ Himself chief among them all—will come soon enough.

“The Homeland in Heaven”

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Photo by Geoffrey Busse, Unsplash

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