Eternal Hello

Sermon on 2 Kings 2:1-12

St. James Evangelical Lutheran Church, Youngstown, PA

Sunday, February 22, 2009,

Transfiguration of Our Lord, Year B,

(word count: 899)

Eternal Hello

In one of his songs, Billy Joel declares, “Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes.” Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes. We meet people. We know them for a while. Sooner of later, however, we must say goodbye to the person. We break up, we move away. We die.

In the movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Benjamin keeps saying hello and goodbye and hello to his life's love, Daisy. They are together for a few days, then some event separates them. Then they are back together, then apart. Finally they get to live together as lovers for a few years. Eventually Benjamin decides that she would be better off without him, so he disappears. Years later, as Benjamin is close to death, the two reunite. Daisy takes care of him until goodbye.

In our first reading, 2 Kings 2:1-12, God is taking away to heaven the prophet Elijah, and his protege, Elisha, is not happy about the matter. He hates the thought of Elijah leaving him. Elisha keeps saying to Elijah, “I will not leave you. I will not leave you.” When Elijah is finally gone, Elisha, to express his grief, tears his own clothes. Goodbye.

Such is the case with us. None of us will be here forever. We will let that truth scrape against our minds on Wednesday night, won't we? Part of the gritty truth of Ash Wednesday is that, eventually, each one of us will die. Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes, and Ash Wednesday reminds us in a black way that all of us will have to say goodbye.

The goodbye of death can cut the heart. People can console us all they want, but all the kinds words and casseroles in the world do not change the naked reality that someone we love is no longer alive, and we will miss having that person with us. Death hurts.

Thanks be to God that death is not the last word. Because of Christ's transfiguring power, you and I have the eternal hello. In heaven no one says goodbye, because we never have to leave each other. In heaven there is no death, no sickness, no moving away, no divorce, no separation, no break-ups. In heaven we are always together, and we are always happy to be together. In heaven we do not get sick of each other. We are together, one, with God, forever, and no one ever has to say goodbye again.

Christ has made this eternal union a reality. By climbing upon the cross and locking with death to defeat it, Christ has given us the eternal hello. Christ lifts us dogs out of the slums to make us into trillionaires. Christ's dark and shadowy death generates the supreme light brighter than anything on earth, the light that the darkness cannot overcome or comprehend. We, the baptized, stand at the foot of the cross, inhaling the light shining through the darkness, and we declare, “Lord, how good for us to be here! Thank you for baptizing us, for saving us, for shining your light on us, for making us into wisemen and wise women. Lord, how good for us to be here! Alleluia!”

Because of Christ on the dark, bleak, shining, bright cross, God has transfigured you and me. God has saved us, so that one day we shall be in heaven and we shall never have to say goodbye again.

In the meantime, we do say goodbye to each other, and those goodbyes can lacerate us with heartache. That sadness is strong, and even stronger is the perpetual presence of God. We do have to say goodbye to each other, at least for now. We never have to say goodbye to God.

God is with us always. Jesus says in Matthew 28, “I am with you always.” No matter how scary the economy; no matter how sick we get; no matter what wars we fight; no matter what, God is with us. When someone we love dies, we might yell and sob, full of furious fear. We might wonder, “How am I going to survive without her? How am I going to survive without him?”

A friend of mine who serves a congregation in New Jersey had someone in his congregation who lost her husband on 9-11. A few months later, she killed herself. When someone we love dies, sometimes being without that person feels like more than we can endure.

Such loss can be overwhelming, but do not give up. Just as God was with Elisha, just as God was with Mary on Good Friday, so also God is with you always, even to the end of the age. God is here, never says goodbye. God comes to us through the Bible and sermon. God comes to us through prayer. God comes to us at every baptism. God is your food at every holy communion. The presence of God does not fix every problem, but it is a strong, comforting presence, and God never says goodbye.

Alleluia! No matter how dark the world, no matter how dark our hearts and minds, God the light shines, scatters the darkness. Feel the holy heat. The light transfigures us. Because of Christ, we never have to say goodbye to God, and, one day, we will bask in the eternal hello, reunited. Hallelujah!