(This is an adapted version of a message given at a Memorial Service).
We moved a lot when I was a child. And every time our family would embark on a new adventure it would be my father who left to prepare a place for us. At some level I must have understood the necessity of his absence; time to find a new home, a new school, a new life for a family that deserved only the best. But more than any logical understanding, I missed him. I missed having him home for dinner to tell him about my day. I missed having him home on weekends to take me to play. And I missed him at night when the house seemed empty and quiet.
I gather that Jesus knew, regardless of the reason and in spite of the necessity, being apart from someone you love isn't easy. Particularly for a creation which was created to be together.
It is in Jesus’s Farewell speech to his most beloved friends and family members that we overhear a timeless message of comfort and peace;
I will not leave you orphaned.
It answers the incessant question that plagues us on this earth; why hast thou forsaken me? And in this moment of anticipated separation Jesus fill the cracks of our hearts with the gentle glue of his love and compassion.
Imagine me.
Imagine me preparing a place for you in my Father’s house.
Imagine that where I am is also with you and that soon once again we will be reunited;
death has not won but has delivered us to different destinations.
Only temporary.
Only for a moment.
It is in the blinking of our eyes, the second when the world around us is closed out and the reality of God’s kingdom surrounds us. Do not let your hearts be troubled. Blink. Remember the thin line that separates us and our own power to overcome such separation through the naming of our memories, the telling of our stories, and the living of our lives. Blink. Allow yourself to feel the touch of the Spirit which now accompanies you and the relationship that outlasts all physical presence. Blink. And in your closed eyes release the power of your love for a man whose life continues to speak beyond the sound of his words. Blink. For Jesus says, “You know the place where I am going.”
And we know that place which our late loved ones are. A place not so separate from our own for in each place we hold one another. They preparing as we are sustaining; both allowing love to peek over the wall that death has created. Both allowing Christ’s light to give us glimpses of a new way of being together. As you have grown in your faith, knowing Christ in your heart, so too have they taken their place among the saints and so too have they gone before us to prepare that place which Jesus reminds us of.
We are not orphaned nor widowed nor forgotten nor lost.
We are sojourners in this world, diving between that which we can see and that truth which is only told to the beating of our hearts and the pulsing of our blood. Death can take a life but never a relationship. Faith has prepared us to love beyond this place and because of this love our connection will never be severed...only adapted.
