To a World That Wants to Go Home – Sunday, December 19, 1943
There are many thoughts that crowd in upon us at Christmas—but most of all, perhaps, our thoughts at this season are of home and those we love; and, if we were free to go our own way, the footsteps of most of us would turn homeward at Christmas. This year perhaps the greatest unfulfilled longing in all the world is the longing expressed by the words, “I want to go home.” There are millions of men in far countries and strange places, on battlefields and on broad seas, friend and foe alike, in whose hearts this thought will not be stilled: “I want to go home.” There are millions, both friend and foe alike, who yearn at home to welcome those who would come if they could.
A world weary of war wants to go home. But there isn’t much time for homecoming in the middle of a war. And there are inevitably long days ahead before such things can be. We can’t go home until the might of arms has brought down the enemies of peace, and neither we nor those away would want to see a general homecoming prematurely. That might mean much lost for little gained. Near two thousand years ago there walked among us a “wayfaring man acquainted with grief,” who said of himself: “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.” (Matthew 8:20.) He wanted to go home, too, but he waited until his work was finished— until he had given a way of life and a pattern for peace. And notwithstanding all well-intentioned plans, notwithstanding treaties, notwithstanding the plottings of dictators, and the benevolent hopes and sincere strivings of honest statesmen, the fact remains that within the gospel of Jesus Christ lies the only solution to the problem of permanent peace and perhaps almost the only solution which in principle and in practice has not been tried.
Of course there are those who will indulgently raise their shoulders and their eyebrows and speak of this as a beautiful but absurd idealism, and because force seemingly is the only course open to us now, we may think that the world can be made safe by force always; but sooner or later we shall come to know otherwise. Assuredly there will yet be another glorious homecoming. And, after the present conflict, it could even be that nevermore would there be men weary on the field of battle, yearning for home at Christmas—but it won’t be on the basis of a peace dictated to an enemy preparing in his heart for the next opportunity to fight. The day when men shall nevermore be called upon to leave home for war, will be when the enemies of righteousness have been defeated on all fronts, and shall have accepted the terms quietly dictated by the Prince of Peace nineteen centuries ago: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself.”
By Richard L. Evans, spoken from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Sunday, Dec. 19, 1943, over Radio Station KSL and the nationwide Columbia Broadcasting System. Copyright – 1943.
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December 19, 1943
Broadcast Number 0,748