The Lessons of Goodbye (Jn. 14:25-17)
Southerners are known for their long goodbyes.
This isn’t news. We love to visit at length with our friends, whether it be at church, in the yard, at a chance meeting in town, or at a restaurant over a meal. Letting the conversation go, leaving the ones we love, involves separation. During the pandemic that has spanned more than a year-and-a-half, the rare chances we have to spend together are even more precious to us and the leaving even harder to come by when we have them because the reality of not being sure of our next chance to be together in person, much less our next breath, is even more real.
Jesus’ leaving took time too.
His disciples didn’t really have their feet under them yet . . . three and one-half years isn’t enough time to understand what He was trying to teach them—it would take their lifetimes to begin scratching beneath the surface of what He had planted in them. He had to leave to accomplish His purpose; He had to say goodbye for them to be able to understand and then remember all His words with the help of the Holy Spirit that He would send. As I am reading and studying through the gospels again, I am at the place where Jesus is preparing His disciples for His leaving. It is in John’s gospel that we see how much time Jesus spends saying goodbye before going to the garden.
At the end of chapter 14 of John, Jesus tells the disciples He is leaving so the world would know how much He loves the Father and acts in obedience to Him. Then Jesus says, “Arise, let us go from here” (v. 31) maybe referencing the supper table itself. Wherever it was that He spoke the words of chapter 15-17, they were spoken before He and the disciples finally left for the garden as John relates in chapter 18.
There is much to say, still much to convey.
Jesus loves them and prepares them as much as they are able to be prepared for what is to come. He lingers over His for-a-while goodbye to them, knowing they would need the peace he extended freely to them so that their hearts would not be troubled or afraid in the extreme suffering of the days to come when they would see their Teacher die a horrible, shameful death on an instrument of torture. As a result of His lingering, His willingness to have a long goodbye when He was eager to complete His mission, Jesus’ encouragement to them, His words of farewell, still encourage us today.
We imitate Jesus’ lingering over His goodbyes in our own reluctance to part from friends and loved ones.
Instead of being exasperated with Southerners when they are attempting to part, maybe, just maybe, we should listen carefully to the love being expressed, to the words that need desperately to be spoken. Really, what is thirty minutes or an hour in this life. Truly important things are spoken in goodbyes. Urgent things. We should stay in the moment instead of thinking of all the things waiting for us in the moments after the leaving. Often those things are distractions. Necessary things? Possibly. Probably. Urgent things? Most of the time, probably not.
As usual, I came across a gem today in Matthew Henry’s commentary on John 14:31 about Jesus’ words to His disciples in urging them to leave just before He continues His farewell discourse:
He gives them an example, teaching them at all times, especially in suffering times, to sit loose to all things here below, and often to think and speak of leaving them. Though we sit easy, and in the midst of the delights of an agreeable conversation, yet we must not think of being here always: Arise, let us go hence.
Like Him, we won’t be here always.
Our time to leave will come, too, when we say farewell for the last time to this world and the people we leave behind. Without the leaving, without the goodbye, there would be no gaining of heaven; yet leaving is hard. [How can I possibly say everything that needs to be said in a few short seconds? What if I didn’t say enough or say it in a way they could understand?]
Often our leaving will involve intense pain. It might be terribly sudden and unexpected, offering no warning. However we leave this world, the truth is that we will depart, our last goodbyes said, whether like Jesus we are aware the end is near or whether we have no clue that it will suddenly be upon us. So we hold on loosely and sit easy in the delights of our agreeable conversations here, as Henry puts it; however, we don’t hold to this world or the things of it. Instead we look forward to our time of reunion and the conversations and wonders of heaven, to the thrill of being able to see Him face to face because we are covered in the blood of the Lamb who perfected love and joy and paved the way through His sacrifice.
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