gospel goodbyes
As I pack my life in Montréal into boxes and prepare for a move to New York City, I find myself today in a season of goodbyes. Many, many goodbyes.
I have long struggled to say goodbyes, fearing their finality and the subsequent loss of proximity and intimacy they foster.
Goodbyes, to me, are tinged with a sentiment of profound sadness. For this reason, I have been known to overstay my welcome at dinner parties, drag on conversations much too long and approach final embraces with weariness and heartache. I have long internalized a fear and disdain of parting ways with those I love- fuelled itself by an unreasonable angst about friendships and relationships ending or never being the same upon my departure. While I am grateful for the comfort of friendship being but a text message and call away, nothing replaces the sacredness of physical proximity - the gift of being able to reach over and hold a hand, embrace the other, squeeze the shoulder.
Goodbyes, at their core, are a painful reminder that we do not have control over our lives and that of those around us.
Dating a boy who lives over 3,000 miles away for the past three years has certainly challenged this proclivity. Though I have grown to recognize the necessity of goodbyes, I still perpetually feel nauseous on our way to the airport at the end of a visit, tears welling up in my eyes and finding myself afflicted during the entire duration of the five-hour airplane ride home. Increasingly, however, I dissociate myself entirely from the moment by becoming stoic and emotionless (which, evidently, is not emotionally healthy).
Needless to say, this transition as I prepare to move to New York - only to subsequently move to Vancouver in early 2020- has been marked by a cycle of excitement and heatbreak and gratefulness and stoicism (sometimes, all at once). And I am wrestling with this new, wonderful, complicated, beautiful and heartrending season.
I value faithfulness, loyalty, and friendship. Though I certainly sense the temptation to leave without a trace, burying my emotions deep into the abyss of my mind and avoiding all goodbyes, I recognize that this would in no way be an act of faithfulness to the life I have in Montréal and the people who hold a special place in my heart here.
To best emulate faithfulness in this difficult stretch of goodbyes, I must look to Jesus who was and is faithfulness and love incarnate.
As I study His ways and relationships and life, I recognize the obvious:
Gospel people say goodbye.
This is the way of the sending body of Christ, the ebb and flow of the disciple life, the reality of God's faithful who are called to different places and contexts for Kingdom works.
As I look to Jesus of Nazareth, I see two important waves of goodbyes: first, he farewells His disciples when the completion of His life on earth approaches and, second, the resurrected Christ says goodbye again to His people before His ascension. Incredibly, He never rushes goodbyes nor approaches them with false joy. Instead, I see two things in His approach: vulnerability and sincere compassion. What a model He is.
Jesus is vulnerable in his season of goodbyes before the beginning of the Passion, taking the unpractical, emotional and slow road of loving and cherishing people well despite His imminent departure.
In His farewell discourse, He acknowledges that He must go - so that people would believe, and because the Father commanded Him to. But He also recognizes the sadness of this reality rather than rushing and powering through it. His goodbyes are fully experienced - tasted despite their bitterness, leaned into despite the pain they encompass. And most importantly, He comforts His disciples through the goodbyes, promising them the Holy Spirit and that He will be with them always, until the end of the age.
In John 13, we read:
[...] when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
What faithfulness and vulnerability! He does not leave them swiftly but loves them through service and words until the very end. He does not simply prepare His departure and demonstrate overwhelm as He fulfills the last works of His ministry, but turns to his own and proactively loves them - forgiving them, preparing them for his exit, showing them that He trusts them, washing their feet and breaking bread with them.
Christ also demonstrates much compassion to those He will not see again earthside. As I mentioned in my last post, when Jesus reinstates Peter after His resurrection - paradoxically asking Peter three times if the disciple loved Him after Peter had denied Him thrice at the crucifixion - He commands Peter the following: feed my sheep. In other words, He mandates Peter to care for those He will not see again and be there for in the flesh. Likewise, He ensures that His relationship with Peter is restored, and that the rift caused by Peter's sin is mended. Jesus wants for Peter to forcefully acknowledge that He has been covered and forgiven. In doing so, Jesus is ensuring that His departure leaves nothing uncertain and unsettled. In saying goodbye, Christ Jesus leaves no loose ends. He is faithful to those He loves despite His work and mission being completed.
May I, as Christ did, leave no loose ends as I part ways with brothers and sisters. May this season of adieus and until-we-meet-agains embody His faithfulness and His commitment to not leave His people with chaos or unfinished business to address. May I lift my head from my cup of sorrows and remember to think of ways to serve those around me - both practically and emotionally - as I depart, modeling after Jesus who folded His burial clothes when He rose from the dead. May I learn to say gospel goodbyes- wherein my friends and my family are reminded of their belovedness as I walk away.
Likewise, I am deeply grateful for those who have loved and cherished me so well in this season. Their friendship makes it difficult to leave, no doubt - but I know that their faithfulness in pouring into me these past weeks is no small thing. My village has walked with me in my sadness and celebrated with me in my joy. They have sought to guard my heart and gone out of their way to bless me in these overwhelming days.
The book of Acts, surveying the establishment and development of the Early Church, is saturated with farewells. In Acts 20:37-38, we read:
And there was much weeping on the part of all; they embraced Paul and kissed him, being sorrowful most of all because of the word he had spoken, that they would not see his face again. And they accompanied him to the ship.
Thank you, sweet friends and sweet family, for accompanying me to the ship. Here is to learning to love each other to the very end, leaving no loose ends, and being gospel people who say and experience gospel goodbyes.
I have long struggled to say goodbyes, fearing their finality and the subsequent loss of proximity and intimacy they foster.
Goodbyes, to me, are tinged with a sentiment of profound sadness. For this reason, I have been known to overstay my welcome at dinner parties, drag on conversations much too long and approach final embraces with weariness and heartache. I have long internalized a fear and disdain of parting ways with those I love- fuelled itself by an unreasonable angst about friendships and relationships ending or never being the same upon my departure. While I am grateful for the comfort of friendship being but a text message and call away, nothing replaces the sacredness of physical proximity - the gift of being able to reach over and hold a hand, embrace the other, squeeze the shoulder.
Goodbyes, at their core, are a painful reminder that we do not have control over our lives and that of those around us.
Dating a boy who lives over 3,000 miles away for the past three years has certainly challenged this proclivity. Though I have grown to recognize the necessity of goodbyes, I still perpetually feel nauseous on our way to the airport at the end of a visit, tears welling up in my eyes and finding myself afflicted during the entire duration of the five-hour airplane ride home. Increasingly, however, I dissociate myself entirely from the moment by becoming stoic and emotionless (which, evidently, is not emotionally healthy).
Needless to say, this transition as I prepare to move to New York - only to subsequently move to Vancouver in early 2020- has been marked by a cycle of excitement and heatbreak and gratefulness and stoicism (sometimes, all at once). And I am wrestling with this new, wonderful, complicated, beautiful and heartrending season.
I value faithfulness, loyalty, and friendship. Though I certainly sense the temptation to leave without a trace, burying my emotions deep into the abyss of my mind and avoiding all goodbyes, I recognize that this would in no way be an act of faithfulness to the life I have in Montréal and the people who hold a special place in my heart here.
To best emulate faithfulness in this difficult stretch of goodbyes, I must look to Jesus who was and is faithfulness and love incarnate.
As I study His ways and relationships and life, I recognize the obvious:
Gospel people say goodbye.
 |
| A tender, bittersweet view of the last Spring in my childhood home. |
As I look to Jesus of Nazareth, I see two important waves of goodbyes: first, he farewells His disciples when the completion of His life on earth approaches and, second, the resurrected Christ says goodbye again to His people before His ascension. Incredibly, He never rushes goodbyes nor approaches them with false joy. Instead, I see two things in His approach: vulnerability and sincere compassion. What a model He is.
Jesus is vulnerable in his season of goodbyes before the beginning of the Passion, taking the unpractical, emotional and slow road of loving and cherishing people well despite His imminent departure.
In His farewell discourse, He acknowledges that He must go - so that people would believe, and because the Father commanded Him to. But He also recognizes the sadness of this reality rather than rushing and powering through it. His goodbyes are fully experienced - tasted despite their bitterness, leaned into despite the pain they encompass. And most importantly, He comforts His disciples through the goodbyes, promising them the Holy Spirit and that He will be with them always, until the end of the age.
In John 13, we read:
[...] when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
What faithfulness and vulnerability! He does not leave them swiftly but loves them through service and words until the very end. He does not simply prepare His departure and demonstrate overwhelm as He fulfills the last works of His ministry, but turns to his own and proactively loves them - forgiving them, preparing them for his exit, showing them that He trusts them, washing their feet and breaking bread with them.
Christ also demonstrates much compassion to those He will not see again earthside. As I mentioned in my last post, when Jesus reinstates Peter after His resurrection - paradoxically asking Peter three times if the disciple loved Him after Peter had denied Him thrice at the crucifixion - He commands Peter the following: feed my sheep. In other words, He mandates Peter to care for those He will not see again and be there for in the flesh. Likewise, He ensures that His relationship with Peter is restored, and that the rift caused by Peter's sin is mended. Jesus wants for Peter to forcefully acknowledge that He has been covered and forgiven. In doing so, Jesus is ensuring that His departure leaves nothing uncertain and unsettled. In saying goodbye, Christ Jesus leaves no loose ends. He is faithful to those He loves despite His work and mission being completed.
May I, as Christ did, leave no loose ends as I part ways with brothers and sisters. May this season of adieus and until-we-meet-agains embody His faithfulness and His commitment to not leave His people with chaos or unfinished business to address. May I lift my head from my cup of sorrows and remember to think of ways to serve those around me - both practically and emotionally - as I depart, modeling after Jesus who folded His burial clothes when He rose from the dead. May I learn to say gospel goodbyes- wherein my friends and my family are reminded of their belovedness as I walk away.
Likewise, I am deeply grateful for those who have loved and cherished me so well in this season. Their friendship makes it difficult to leave, no doubt - but I know that their faithfulness in pouring into me these past weeks is no small thing. My village has walked with me in my sadness and celebrated with me in my joy. They have sought to guard my heart and gone out of their way to bless me in these overwhelming days.
The book of Acts, surveying the establishment and development of the Early Church, is saturated with farewells. In Acts 20:37-38, we read:
And there was much weeping on the part of all; they embraced Paul and kissed him, being sorrowful most of all because of the word he had spoken, that they would not see his face again. And they accompanied him to the ship.
Thank you, sweet friends and sweet family, for accompanying me to the ship. Here is to learning to love each other to the very end, leaving no loose ends, and being gospel people who say and experience gospel goodbyes.
 |
| Christ takes leave of His mother, Bernhard Strigel, 1520, Berlin. |
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