So I heard a joke this week. There is this young man ushering in church on a Sunday morning and a very elegant older woman walks in. The young man hands her a program and kindly asks her where she would like to sit. "Up front, sir." She says with a smile. And the young man starts to head up the center aisle to seat her. But on the way there, he takes her arm and, speaking softly, tells her, "If I were you, I would not sit too far up front. The pastor tends to preach really boring sermons and if you are seated up front, he looks directly at you from time to time. You can't really space out or read or anything. Let me sit you here in the middle. That way, if you need to just daydream a bit, no one will notice."
She stopped as he was ushering her into a pew half-way down the aisle, looked at him, and said,
"Son, do you know who I am?"
"No, ma'am," he said.
She looked at him. "I am the pastors mother," she said.
The young man froze. Then, after catching his breath, he ushered woman to her pew. The woman sat down and he leaned in and said to the her, "Ma'am, do you know who I am?"
"No, young man, I don't," she said.
"Good!" He said and high-tailed it out of there.
Sometimes we encounter a situation that we cannot wait to escape. There are people who we would be happy to never see again. The student speaker at Episcopal's graduation ceremony, Collin Walker, admitted yesterday morning that there were some students he would miss and others that he felt grateful to leave.
This weekend is a weekend of graduations and it is not coincidental that the church remembers how Jesus left us. We actually celebrate his leaving. It is the strangest holiday, a holiday that feels more sad than almost any other day.
Jesus returned from the dead and all four of the gospels recount how he appeared to his disciples over and over again. He would appear while they were walking, while they were eating, when they were just hanging out in a room or when they were just out fishing. He came to them over and over again so that they would believe that he was not dead. But then, after a period of forty days, he left. His body literally was lifted up into heaven.
The scene of Jesus' departure is described in two books: Luke and Acts. The strange thing is that these two books are really volumes one and two of the same book, written to a man named Theophilus from the physician Luke who traveled with Paul. So why would Luke tell the same story twice? It was as if this part, the leaving, was really important to Luke. He wanted to make sure that we remembered that Jesus left us.
Human beings are designed for leaving. Our bodies are built not to last. We cannot hold onto each other, we cannot hold onto our stuff, we can't even hold onto our children. We are temporal beings. We are designed with the one single truth of our existence in mind...we must leave one another. Any attempt that we make to forget this truth of our existence is a waste of time. You and I don't belong on this earth. We simply will not last.
Our lives are a series of changes. We graduate, we move, we age, we retire, we die. We are always moving, we cannot help it. Even if all that we want to do, the world is constantly teaching us to let go.
When I lived in Connecticut, I lived across the street from a woman who tried not to let go. She would not move out of her large home even when she could no longer care for it. She would not ask for help from her neighbors but barked at us when we came by to check on her. She was terrified that we would call social services. When she got a wound on her leg, she denied that it was bad. They found her dead on her kitchen floor after her mail piled up. After all her efforts not to leave, she still eventually left.
Jesus modeled for us how to be human. He was born, he served others, he prayed. He even died and then returned to show us that death is not the end. But then, in order to fully express his humanity, he had to leave. No human being stays on this earth forever. If Jesus was to be both fully God and fully man, he would have to leave us. This temporal life has to end, even for those who are to experience eternal life. All human beings have to die, we have to leave.
So Jesus left us publically, to show us how. He gathered all the people that he loved and he told them the truth, that he was going. He blessed them and gave them the Holy Spirit, the part of God that will never leave us. And then he left, physically, openly, he left.
The harder that you hold onto the things of this life, the more pain you will feel when you have to leave. Love greatly but do not become too attached. Why do we hold on so hard? But the hardest part of this reality is that most people are scared of being left alone. We are scared that no one will want us, no one will love us. It makes us feel better to be with each other. Even most introverts need company sometimes. That's why solitary confinement is one of the worst forms of punishment. It scares us to be left alone.
Last Saturday, there was a funeral for Charlie Towers just down the street at the First Presbyterian Church. Charlie did something amazing. He knew that he was old and dying so he made a video of himself. Now, I was not there so help me if I get this wrong, but what I heard was that he told everyone to celebrate and to get to know the one who they can hold onto, Jesus. He made an old fashioned altar call from the grave! Now that's evangelism!!
You don't belong here. There is only one permanent relationship for you, a relationship that lasts from this life into the life to come. It is the most important relationship of your life. You must find a way to spend time with God. You must give things away in service to God, sacrificially giving your money, your belongings, your time. Eventually, everything else must either be given away or it will be taken away from you simply because you can't take it with you. Hold onto God when all else fails. It is not your body or your accomplishments or even the people who you love the most who will stay with you. Only ONE knows your name for all eternity. Only one.
