I’m going to spend one more day on the song, “Coming Home” by the rap group Diddy-Dirty Money featuring Skylar Grey on the chorus, because I have a few more things I want to say about it, and I just realized I didn’t save it properly to the website. That means none of you could comment about the song in the right place, and I really want to hear what some of you have to say about it. If you missed it, go to our site and stroll down one day. The YouTube links are provided.
Me, I’m amazed at the song’s honesty and the way it captures what happens when a repentant life meets forgiveness. It’s a picture of forgiveness you can literally feel in your heart. This is a man who is owning up to his life and able to embrace it because he’s been forgiven. Without announcing itself as such, it is a contemporary salvation song – a song that brings the current generation a message of hope. Something of value can rise from the rubble.
There is another thing worth noting about this song and that would be its interpretation of “home.” Traditionally in gospel music, home is heaven – a place where our ultimate journey ends. The spirituals always spoke of another home because this one was so miserable. For many it didn’t even exist. But in this song no one dies. Home isn’t there; it’s here and now.
This is home in time and space. This is home where family and friends are. Home, where the consequences of my bad choices are, yet I can be here because my perspective on everything has changed. This is home where the grace of God lives. That grace has been extended to me, I accept it, and extend it in turn to everyone here, and everyone who darkens my door.
“Tell the world I’m coming home…” Is that just the arrogant statement of a rap artist who thinks he has the world’s attention (he does)? I don’t think so. I think it’s another indication that it is this world he is talking about, not another one.
What’s that? Oh nothing… It’s just that yesterday I had a couple unseemly characters at my door and I momentarily forgot about the grace of God. I forgot to extend it to these guys. I would have treated them differently had I remembered.
John Fischer The Catch 
The Catch has changed my life in so many ways. As a Christian who likes the genre of rap/hip hop I have always felt guilty for liking this music…but this is who I am, a broken person who has come up through the rubble and you have helped me to not be ashamed of where I have come from…it just shows me how far I’ve come and how much I have grown in grace, mercy and love through Jesus. This is just how The Catch works to touch every part of our lives and not leave anything out, I love how you talk about topics that would normally be “taboo” for Christians to even broach. Isn’t that what Jesus would want? That we give him every part of our lives including the unseemly thoughts, the bad dark places we have come from? That is how He makes light of our darkness and purpose from our mess…also, the above does not mean I think I have arrived…just that I have made progress and continue to “grow in the knowledge and grace of Christ Jesus”.
Love you man!
I loooove this song! I first heard it a while ago, and every time I have heard it since I’ve thought about God’s grace and my eternal home. Because it’s a “secular” song, though, and because I’m a Christian,–when I hear it on the radio I think, “Wow God, I hope the other people listening are getting out of this song what I’m getting.” I never thought of the song in the way you have described, though, as coming home in the here and now. I suppose that’s what the prodigal son did. He “came to himself” (realized his sin and shortcomings) and then he went home to RECEIVE his Father’s grace, which was forgiveness AND a bountiful reception–right here on earth. I suppose that’s what we need to do daily: realize that we are sinners, saved by grace, and then receive a fresh offering–look around us and realize, “this aint so bad, I’m HOME–I’m blessed.”
John, you start well, and then…
According to the Apostle Paul, this earth is a battlefield (Ephesians 6). We are soldiers fighting a war on foreign soil (II Timothy 2:3). We are also ambassadors (II Corinthians 5:20). Ambassadors never serve at home, always in a foreign land. Even Abraham called himself a stranger in a strange land.
So, this world is NOT our home, John. If it were, then there would be no reason for Christ to return; no reason for the New Jerusalem to come down from Heaven, making earth perfect once more; no reason for the marriage banquet of the Lamb, etc. I think when you’re standing in the New Heavens and New Earth one day, looking around on the perfection of God’s righteousness and glory, you will look back on what you have said today and say, “WHAT was I THINKING!” Because then it will be clear where your home really is.
On the other hand, Christ has made His home in our hearts. For this life, that’s enough home for me, and all the home any soldier or ambassador can expect.
Waitsel,
I think you are correct in many respects, but I think you are missing some of the point of what is being said. We aren’t temporal residents in a temporal kingdom just gritting through the constant battle as we wait to become eternal residents of the eternal kingdom. I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but it seems like that is what you are saying.
Are we in a battle . . . absolutely! But we are co-residents of the eternal and temporal kingdoms right now. Jesus brought the kingdom to earth and yes his spirit is at work within us and he lives in our hearts but is that not lived out in the fellowship – the koinonia – of believers and in this do we not catch a glimpse of ‘home’ . . . even here on earth? I certainly have, and I hope that you have too.
This world knows how to fight; conflict and strife and selfishness are woven into the fabric of our flesh. What this world doesn’t know how to do is love and forgive and bear with each other and demonstrate longsuffering . . . to be Christ-like. I think the more Christ-like we are, the more ‘home’ we will experience – even now here on earth – and the brighter our light will be to a dark and lost world in need of and in search of . . . home.
Exactly where I’m going with the next post. Stay tuned!
thanks for introducing the song “Coming Home”. i am going to use it in my Father’s Day message. keep the faith.