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THE AGONY OF SAYING GOODBYE

The vast oceans of the world, such as the Atlantic and the Pacific that wash our eastern and western shores, are the great separators of the world’s population. Perhaps that’s why John begins the Bible’s last vision of a future perfect world with the words, “There were no more oceans” (see Revelation 21:1). While some brave souls challenge the restless waves and unpredictable storms in their small ships, for most of us, the continent’s shores are barriers of separation. And those that must travel back and forth across the oceans usually experience considerable pain when they must say goodbye to family and friends.

Just go to the departure lounge of any airport, and you’ll see the pain that comes in saying goodbye. Like young lovers hanging on to each other, loathe to end that final kiss, before one of them walks down the ramp and onto a plane that will whisk them perhaps to the other side of the world.

But most painful of all is that final goodbye, when we gather at a graveside to remember someone who has gone beyond our touch, our talk, and our tears.

The Gospel of John has a unique way of showing us that Jesus understands how we feel in such sad circumstances, based on His own personal experiences of saying “Goodbye.”

The events recorded in John chapters 2 and 17 are to be found only in John’s Gospel. And not only do these two chapters reveal how Jesus experienced the agony of saying “Goodbye,” in a quite wonderful way, they also illustrate how John wants us to know and understand the deity of Jesus—which is John’s special emphasis, in contrast with the portraits of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

Goodbyes always come at a specific moment. I’m sure God doesn’t cross off earth days on a celestial calendar the way we do. But I know He has a calendar. The eternal One, Creator of time and seasons, the One Who made the days, and months, and years, so we can keep track of time, He keeps meticulous track of “earth time” with us. Amazingly, our eternal God, Who has neither beginning nor end, and is omnipresent, He can be in all places simultaneously, condescends to relate to each of us in the narrow dimensions of our own time, and space, and most important of all, our deepest feelings.

So one day, when some kind of metaphorical, celestial bell reverberated in heaven, Jesus knew “the” moment had finally come, He had to say “Goodbye” to God the Father and all the angels. It was time to lay aside the deity and glory that had been His through all eternity. And in that moment He chose to become a human embryo from which, over the following nine months, He became a babe born of His human mother Mary.

It’s a mystery that it happened. It’s an even greater mystery, how. Something we can’t even speculate about. It’s far beyond our comprehension. But this I know, through the anguish of saying “Goodbye” on multiple occasions, Jesus experienced what we experience, and on that basis He can understand and comfort us. As the writer to the Hebrews says,

“He learned . . . through the things that He suffered” (5:8).

He certainly learned much through the pain he felt saying “Goodbye” to His heavenly family. Paul writes about it, bluntly, but accurately, that Jesus took “the form of a slave or servant” (that’s Philippians 2:7). Yes, He gave up everything. What cost, what pain!

But back to the Gospel of John where we read of a second major goodbye for Jesus.

He was born in Bethlehem in human form; truly, fully man; but He was also truly, fully God; but His divinity, His deity, was “veiled” by his external appearance of humanity. And for the next few years His life unfolded in virtual obscurity. How fascinating it would have been to watch His life unfold. We know so little about those years!

We do know, however, that Jewish children lived within the tight confines of rules, developed and enforced by the rabbis, rules that encompassed virtually every area of life. We can safely assume that Jesus didn’t show an interest in that approach to a Godly life! He had a relationship with a higher authority.

The scribes assumed that all small children could be directed to act in the ways they proscribed. But even before He became a teen, Jesus discussed His views and convictions with the leading Jewish teachers in Jerusalem, and left them amazed and confounded. I hear Him asking them for words in the Torah for their endless regulations that made religion such a burden, so restrictive, so lacking in freedom and liberty to love and serve God. The Scribes were amazed that this child knew the Bible from beginning to end. And they knew . . . that He knew . . . that their rules . . . .were not to found in Scripture. This young lad shamed them; how they must have resented Him!
We can be sure that Mary often found herself in the middle of conflict and misunderstanding right in her own home. She knew Jesus had come to her from God. The angel Gabriel told her that, and her virgin birth proved it. But understandably Joseph’s sons, by an earlier marriage, would have found the explanation verging on impossible to believe!

In this way three decades passed in Nazareth. Then heaven’s bell chimed again, and Jesus heard the sound. Heeding its call, he became an itinerant teacher/healer, leaving the familiarity of a crowded but comfortable home, without luxuries but with much love. It was time to say “Goodbye” to His saintly mother.

Every mother will know instinctively something of what Mary experienced as she watched Jesus disappear round a corner in Nazareth and walk out of her life. Imagine her incredible sadness at losing Him, the only perfect son in the world since Adam and Eve were made in the Garden of Eden. But she also felt a strong element of hope in her heart.

This must be the time, she told herself, that He’d present Himself to Israel’s leaders as their Messiah. She imagined He was heading south to Jerusalem. They knew the walk well, they’d be doing it together three times a year for some 30 years, attending the annual feasts in Jerusalem! Perhaps, she thought, He’ll perform a miracle for them! But she never dreamed that He’d perform His first public miracle in her presence! And not in some solemn service at the temple in front of all the hierarchy of Judaism from the High Priest down but, of all places, in the gaiety of a party where a crowd of village folk were celebrating a wedding.

As you read the Record, you find Jesus socialized His way through His public ministry, mixing freely with both the richest and the poorest people in Palestine. He gladly ate the banquets provided by the wealthiest, and shared simple food with the poorest—like those fish sandwiches for thousands on a hillside overlooking Galilee. But to inaugurate the ministry of the Son of God in the laughter and dancing of a party seems, well, quite preposterous!

Jesus chose an occasion where He could maintain the party atmosphere by providing some superb-tasting wine—when the cheaper version that these lower-middle-class families could afford, ran out.

But at His “coming out” party, Jesus experienced the pain of publicly affirming His goodbye to His lovely mother, and showing He was no longer beholden to her. He now had a heavenly calling and must obey the commands of God the Father.

Mary saw the glances of the guests at her Son. Maybe this would be the moment she’d hoped and prayed for, when He’d perform a miracle. So when the wine ran out before the party ended, as one of the caterers (because she was a relative of the celebrants) Mary commented, pointedly, "Jesus, they have no wine" (see John 2:3). It was a mother’s way of saying, “Don’t just stand there, my son, do something!” It was a natural continuation of the way they’d been together at home. I hear her saying, “Jesus, I have no water.” And He’d get it for her gladly without a moment’s delay. And in Cana Jesus acted—but not in response to His mother’s call, but to strengthen the faith of His brand-new disciples.

So John records a brief and awkward snippet of conversation. She spoke, and Jesus replied in words found in John’s Gospel,
“Dear woman, why do you try to involve me? My time has not come” (see John 2:4).
He’d left home. He’d said “Goodbye,” to the dearest person on earth to Him. He was now acting exclusively at His heavenly Father’s will, not His earthly mother’s.
There are two issues here. First, it is through the power of God that Jesus will perform a miracle. And Mary is not the mother of His deity. That’s why He asks, “What have I to do with you?” And then He follows with the words, “My hour hasn’t come yet.” It was as if He said, “Mary you are the mother of my humanity. And 42 months from now, in the hour of my agony and in the humanity you gave me, I’ll be tested to the limit. But not now. That hour has not yet come. So I must remind you we’ve said ’Goodbye.’” Oh, the pain of that goodbye—for both Mary and Jesus.

Do you understand now, how Jesus can comfort you in your sadness every time you have to say “Goodbye?” He’s been though it, He knows what it feels like. He understands, and He’ll comfort you. Of that you can be sure.