May 20, 2015; Wednesday in the Seventh Week

All week at Eucharist we’ve been hearing farewells.  We’re late in the book of Acts, as Paul goes back to Jerusalem, is arrested, and makes his journey to Rome and the emperor.  In John’s Gospel Jesus is saying goodbye and praying to God on behalf of the disciples.  Later he will return and tell Peter to tend the sheep.  It’s a week for wrapping things up.

(I just have to mention that David Letterman is also saying goodbye this week after 22 years hosting The Late Show.  Coincidence?  You decide.)

All these farewells can make me a little melancholy.  If we didn’t have the book of Acts, we might think the story ended on the beach with Peter and Jesus.  But Acts is the final “narrative” in the canonical Scriptures, so when it ends in its rather anticlimactic fashion it can sound like a dwindling away.  It just ends.  Paul is hanging around Rome, talking and waiting.  It doesn’t sound like much.

But we know the story continues.  We know because we are here today, reading these books and talking about Jesus.  And with the discovery of the apocryphal books we know that many more stories were written about Jesus and the disciples.  We’re talking about them too.  So I know these goodbyes are not really the end.

And yet, there are real endings.  Jesus leaves, at least in recognizable form.  Paul dies.  Peter dies.  Even Mary Magdalene dies, somewhere.  New generations of disciples arise, and die in turn.  There are real endings.

As we prepare for Pentecost, for a new beginning that is a continuation of the eternal Spirit’s movement, it’s a good time to consider what is left unsaid or undone.  Jesus prays that the disciples will be one, that they will be safe in body and in spirit.  Jesus tells Peter what to do next (though not very clearly, for sure).  I like to think that Paul reconciled with anyone he had a dispute with before he left for Rome.

In these last few days, is there anything you need to close the door on?  Any words left unsaid, love left unexpressed, concerns or prayers unsaid?  Is there anyone or anything you need to say farewell to?

I’ll be pondering this today, and this week.  I want to be ready for the next chapter of the life God dreams for me.  If you do too, seize this chance.  Come, Holy Spirit!