For: The Institute of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen's University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt

A gentleman in our church has been fighting lung cancer for some time. Recently, the doctors told him the cancer had spread and that there was nothing more they could do but try to keep him comfortable. They hoped he could last three to six months on hospice care, but after only a few weeks, David quietly slipped off into glory last night.

My husband and I had the chance to sit and visit with him a few hours last week. I just never imagined it would be the last time we saw him. How often do you really think your routine "goodbye" will really be your last?

As we sat there and talked about life, about church, about love - in the presence of his wife and his grown daughter (who also happened to be holding her newborn son, David's youngest grandchild) - I will never forget how he exuded such peace, able to express his complete confidence in the Lord. In fact, he even told us that he had "lived a good life" and was "ready to go." With the slightest of tears, he told us that knew it would only be the blink of an eye and his loved ones would be there with him in heaven.

I can't help but think, it sure doesn't make it any easier for those left behind - especially his wife, siblings, and children who are grieving their loss at this moment. Regardless, it is days like these we are reminded that relationships are precious - an absolute gift from God - no matter how long or short we have to enjoy and appreciate them.

This week, I started reading Simply Christian by N.T. Wright for the Essentials Blue Online Theology Course. In the first four chapters, Wright suggests that there are four basic "echoes of a voice" we all experience in one way or another:

1. The longing for justice
2. The quest for spirituality
3. The hunger for relationships, and
4. Delight in beauty.

Wright explains that these echoes point beyond themselves, hinting of a God we might know for ourselves and a calling to participate in the work of His kingdom here on earth. Through these echoes, God invites us to join in His redemptive plan - set in place since the beginning of time - to set the world to rights. 1

For example, the echoes that we hear may make us feel like life should be more fair or cause us to crave something more substantial than this materialistic, workaholic world can offer. The echoes that we hear may make us eager to fall in love, have children, or make dozens of new friends. Or, we may hear the echoes of beauty in the ocean, mountains, sunshine, or snow - which tell us that all of this was put here for us to enjoy...but by whom? Our hearts cry out constantly for answers in response to these echoes.

At you read through the list of echoes, it is likely that one echo reverberates louder for you than the others. Which one do you find speaking the most loudly, perhaps in light of your background or current circumstances?

The echo that resonates most deeply within me is the hunger for relationships. Whether we are searching for new friends in a new town, a future husband or wife with whom to start a family, or grieving the loss of a loved one already gone before us, we have to admit that the longing for relationships is there at some varying degree.

Sure, a walk on the beach by ourselves or taking in a movie alone can occasionally do wonders for the soul, but I agree with Wright that most of us don't want to be alone the majority of the time. We want to know others and to be known. We want to live life together, share experiences, make memories, and cherish moments. In fact, sharing our lives with other human beings can often be the very thing that makes life on earth feel more like really living. 2

But what do we do with all of that when a relationship comes to an end - either by death or other circumstance? What do we do when things don't work out like we think they should? As Wright puts it:

"We search for justice, but we often find that it eludes us. We hunger for spirituality, but we often live as though one-dimensional materialism were the obvious truth. In the same way, the finest and best of our relationships will eventually end in death. The laughter will end in tears. We know it; we fear it; but there's nothing we can do about it." 3

Though relationships on earth come to an end, we can find much comfort in the fact that Jesus himself understood the grief that accompanies the loss of a loved one. In the book of John, chapter eleven tells the story of the death of Jesus' friend Lazarus. When Mary took Jesus to the tomb where Lazarus lay, verse thirty-five says: "Jesus wept." He is fully God - with the power to raise Lazarus from the dead and the knowledge that He would do just that - and yet, he wept.

We get to see a glimpse of God's heart here; He not only understands our sorrow but also gives us permission by His actions to weep in seasons of our own loss as well. As Wright concludes so beautifully at the close of his chapter on relationship: "One of the central elements of the Christian story is the claim that the paradox of laughter and tears, woven as it is deep into the heart of all human experience, is woven also deep into the heart of God." 4

As we peer into the heart of God through the scriptures, we find out how much He wants relationship with each and every one of us. God - through Jesus' life, death, and resurrection - conquered over sin and death once and for all so that nothing could ever separate us from His love!

Even further, and perhaps most profoundly, we see God's desire for intimate relationships by the very nature of the Trinity, where Father, Spirit, and Son "model and embody that interrelatedness, that mutual and fruitful knowing, trusting and loving, which was the Creator's intention." 5

As we pursue relationships this side of heaven, God continually teaches us about His love for us by helping us learn how to better love one another. We are reminded, however, that even the best relationship experienced on earth only provides the tiniest taste of what awaits us in heaven.

In God's presence forever, we will find freedom from the fears that prevented us from giving and receiving love the way He originally intended. Only then will we finally be able to experience fully the kind of love that comes when there simply no more "goodbyes" to be said.

1] N.T. Wright, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense (San Francisco: HarperCollins Publishers, 2006), x-xi.

2] Ibid, 31.

3] Ibid, 35-36.

4] Ibid, 38.

5] Ibid, 37.