A lot of us find partings difficult to handle.
You only have to stand on a station platform or airport departure area to see people hugging, perhaps crying, and waving sadly as they go their separate ways.
Looking back on my life experiences I think some of the hardest goodbyes I have said were to my children, as they left to go on foreign exchange visits in their teens. It was their first time in another country without us and I feared they would feel homesick and lonely. I would probably have found it easier if they had stayed in the UK, where the language and customs would have been more familiar.
Goodbyes to those we love who are dying can be very hard indeed, but if there has been a time of preparation with time to say the things that are important, this can alleviate some of the pain.
In the accounts of Jesus’ ascension in Luke’s gospel, chapter 24 and in the Acts of the Apostles, we read that Jesus blessed his disciples and then disappeared from their sight. In Acts he is ” taken up before their eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight”. Luke tells us that the disciples worshipped Jesus and then
“returned to Jerusalem with great joy”.
It is the statement that they returned with great joy that has often puzzled me. Surely, they would have been really sad to say this final goodbye to their resurrected Lord? His appearances among them after his resurrection had made them so happy and now they were ending. From now on it would be down to them to continue Jesus’ ministry, albeit with the help of the promised Holy Spirit. Weren’t they sad to see him go from them?
I can only think that the event of Jesus’ ascension was something he had prepared them for in some of those important conversations they had with him beforehand. We read of some of this in Acts chapter 1. He told them what was going to happen next and what they were to do. They also had a certainty about who Jesus was, derived from the experiences they had had since his death and resurrection, and they worshipped him as he left their sight, knowing that he was going to his Father as he had told them. This goodbye was part of a much bigger plan, and that knowledge enabled them to return to Jerusalem, pray earnestly and await the promised Holy Spirit. They looked forward rather than back, and we have to do the same in our faith journey.
Prayer – Lord Jesus. At this time when we remember your ascension we see you as Lord and look forward to the arrival and renewal of the promised Holy Spirit to equip us on our journey. Amen