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Moseley Chimes
May 2008
I suppose it’s unavoidable. Every day we find ourselves saying “goodnight” or “goodbye” to those around us.
Usually such words are said quite cheerfully because we expect to see each other again (perhaps in just a few hours) but sometimes ‘goodbyes’ can be very sad occasions because, we know in our heart of hearts that we may never see each other again. “Parting is such sweet sorrow.” At such times I question where the ‘sweetness’ comes in.
Learning what it means to say goodbye can begin at an early age. As children, we change to a different school, or perhaps, move home. Sometimes we may get the chance to meet up again but often we don’t, and at that stage in our lives, we’re probably too young to realise that such partings really could be ‘goodbye’. Our paths will never cross again.
It can be much the same situation when we’ve grown up. Again, unintentionally, we delude each other (and ourselves) by promising to ‘keep in touch’ but before we realise it, we’re merely exchanging Christmas cards once a year and, eventually, even that stops.
‘Death’ is always the most painful parting because, when we lose someone who was very close, we have to face up to the fact that we are not going to meet again in this lifetime. It’s a reality we’ve all experienced, but it’s been particularly hard during these last few months when (as a church family) we’ve ‘lost’ quite a number of dear friends.
In May this year, the Christian Church celebrates two major festivals, the Ascension, when we’re told how Jesus left his disciples for the last time and ascended into heaven, and Pentecost, when the gift of the Holy Spirit came upon the Church.
Both events are clouded in symbolism and it’s impossible to know precisely what happened on those occasions but, from the accounts of Jesus’s final departure, there are three images firmly fixed in my mind.
The first one is of the disciples standing alone on that hillside, dazed, shaken, and perhaps feeling miserable, a sense of being abandoned. But the second is of Jesus’s parting words, “Remember, I am with you always, … until the end of time.”. And then the third is of those disciples making their way back to Jerusalem with (according to St Luke) “a feeling of great joy”.
No mention of sadness or tears of mourning. No sense of loss. They had said, “goodbye” and yet they were joyful. They may no longer have had a tangible God whom they could see and hear and touch but, from that point on, they were prepared to walk by the inner eye of faith, to trust in an unseen presence, in the knowledge that whatever has happened (or whatever will happen in time to come) God’s love never dies.
“I am with you always”, and those words apply to all of us, now and for ever.