Linda loved spending time with her mom. They would bake brownies together, play games, dress up. Her mom was so much fun. She did not work and from the time that Linda was a baby, her mom was just around, laughing and playing with her. They would paint, draw, garden, cook and play the best games of hide and seek. Her mom was always laughing.
When Linda was nine, she came home from school to find her dad at home. She was an only child and never had her dad been home when she walked home from school. But there he was, with this terrible look in his eyes. He looked like a ghost. And then he told her what had happened. Her mom had gotten into a car accident and she was dead.
How does a child learn about absence? She had never been without her mother, without the laughter and the simple warmth of her presence. She would wake up in the middle of the night, crying for her mom and there would be her clumsy dad, patting her on the back and crying. Or sometimes he was so exhausted that he wouldn't even hear her cry and she would wake up, sweating and sobbing and alone. The silence was deafening. The emptiness felt like it would swallow her up. She was alone.
Today marks what, for me, is the strangest holiday in the Christian year. Today we celebrate the fact that Jesus left us. Jesus, who loved us so profoundly and walked among us and told us stories and cried and joked and played. He died but then he returned, changing the greatest tragedy into good news. After the resurrection, Jesus would appear from time to time to laugh and eat with his disciples. I am sure that the disciples longed too see his face and wondered when he would next appear. It must have felt like the best game of hide and seek ever, not knowing where and when he would pop up next. Jesus was so playful in the resurrected form. Just like Linda's mom, he seemed to play and laugh a lot. I love the way he just popped in from time to time.
And then Jesus brought them to a hill outside Jerusalem and he told them that he would give them the gift of his spirit and they had no idea what he was talking about. And then, he left. He did not die but instead his body was lifted up to heaven. And he was gone. And the emptiness returned. And they were alone. The disciples just stood there, gaping up at the sky, with no idea what to do next. How can you go on when the one you love is gone?
Why did Jesus have to leave us? Why couldn't he just keep popping in from time to time? What kind of a holiday is this, the Ascension? Why do we even celebrate this day? What could be so good about it?
In his book, Learning to Fall, Phillip Simons talks about getting Lou Gerig's disease. At 37, he found himself in a wheelchair and he was told that he had only a few years to live. And that was when he became aware of how precious life is, when he learned that he would die. He learned to be fully alive when he learned that he was going to die. Life became much more precious when he knew that he would have to say goodbye.
All of us who dare to love must one day say goodbye. In truth, we say goodbye whenever we go to sleep at night or get on an airplane or into the car. We say goodbye continuously because we can never be sure that tomorrow will come. All that we have is this day, this moment. The future is forever uncertain for all those who are willing to wake up to the fragility of life. We are always saying goodbye.
Of course Jesus had to say goodbye. Saying goodbye is part of the truth of human existence. It is something that we can't avoid. Jesus knew that we couldn't avoid goodbyes so he showed us how to do them. Jesus taught us how to say goodbye. He said goodbye in a way that we could all remember. This is what he did...
He took his loved ones to a special place.
He told them that he loved them and told them the truth about saying goodbye.
He gave them the gift of his spirit.
And he blessed them.
Every day, we should follow his example. The time is now. Don't wait. Just a few days ago, our former parish administrator, Monica McKenzie, lost her brother. He went in for emergency heart surgery and made it through the surgery just fine, but then something happened and he was gone, just gone. He was 57 years old.
The time is now. Don't wait. Step out of the fray of your busy lives and make sure that you tell your loved ones that you love them. Give them the gift of your spirit. Reassure them that you will always be part of them, and bless them. Yes, you can bless your loved ones. It is not just priests who can bless.
But in order to say goodbye, we must face our worst fear, the fear of losing our loved ones. To be truly free to love is to recognize that saying goodbye is part of the story, it is part of the joy of love itself. Jesus said goodbye and we must do this too if we are truly to be free to love without fear.
It took years, but gradually, Linda's nightmares turned into dreams of thanksgiving. Linda came to understand that her mother taught her how to play and that she had her mothers laugh. She became a kindergarden teacher. And whenever Linda played with the children, her mother was there. Her mother's spirit lived on in her, in her laughter and in her teaching. Linda became thankful to have known such love at all, and she realized that her mother never really went away. Her mother was inside her now, in her heart.
After Jesus left, his disciples worshipped him and then they acted as if they were him. They did just what he would have done. They became true ministers, children of God. They took his spirit inside of themselves and they were changed.
Goodbyes are hard but they make you powerful, for you hold the spirit of your loved one inside you. It is one of the greatest mysteries of life, but sometimes, when you say goodbye someone you truly love, you become more like them. And that will never change and it will never be taken away.
