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I hate goodbyes

Today, I say goodbye to Merrylands East Presbyterian Church. I've only been there a year - which is long enough to get attached to people, but not long enough to get to know them deeply. Worst possible combination.

I hate goodbyes. Because if I’m saying goodbye, that means I’m moving somewhere. I might be moving jobs, or moving house, or moving church – like I am now. Once, I moved continents – that’s when I migrated from Sri Lanka to Australia.

Moving breaks relationships. When we move someplace new, we can’t keep up with people like we used to. We don’t seem them as much. We don’t talk to them as much. Little by little, we lose contact. We don’t know how they’re going. We don’t know what’s happening in their lives.Electronic networking methods – like Facebook – they’re good, but it’s not the same thing as meeting people personally. I remember seeing one of my Facebook friend’s update that he’d just had his fourth child, and I thought “what the – four kids? Last time I checked he only had two…”

It’s worse if we change church – like I am – ‘coz I’ll need to get to know all the people in my old church. And spending time with my new friends means I can’t keep up with my old friends. It’s just physically impossible. We don’t have enough time.

Every time relationships break like this, it’s a little bit like death. Death is the final goodbye.When people die, we never see them again. We can never talk to them again. We can’t say we love them, or say sorry for something we’ve done, or anything. It’s too late. They’ve moved on – forever.

When Jesus was arrested, put on trial, stuck on the cross, and died, the disciples didn’t get to say goodbye. That’s because they were too chicken – they’d already deserted him and run away (Matt 26:56b; Mark 14:50). They left it up to a small group of women, who came to Jesus’ tomb to say goodbye to Jesus, by giving him the final dignity of being properly embalmed (Mark 16:1; Luke 24:1). And that’s when they got the shock of their lives. Because instead of them saying goodbye to Jesus, Jesus said hello to them (Matt 28:9; John 20:16).

And that’s why Jesus’ resurrection is so exciting. ‘Coz he promises that if we trust in him, then what happened to him will happen to us (1 Cor 15:42-56; Php 3:21). If we trust Jesus, we can be confident that one day he will raise us up from the dead, with new bodies that cannot die. And we’ll live forever with him, and each other, in a place with no goodbyes.

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