The day I've always feared.

It has arrived.  I knew it was inevitable, but part of me wished it would have taken longer. My son now realizes that I am gone.  When I leave for work in the morning he asks me not to go.  When he realizes that it is impossible for me to stay he tries to find things for me to do to keep me longer at the house.  "Daddy, get me this please." If anything it buys him a few more minutes.  With the end in sight he begins to negotiate a chance for him to come with me.  Each day when I leave the house a dance begins.  This waltz is a heart-wrenching, gut-checking reality of having to leave my children. Back and forth I enter the dance knowing what the outcome will be.  I will leave. My only hope is that I will return to see them and to pick up where we left off.  Some days my son continues to go back and play with his toys.  Other times he extends the mourning process (which always makes things fun for my wife).  He is confused.  

This confusion is also found in the disciples in John 14. "They are like children playing on the floor, only to look up and see Mom and Dad putting on their coats.  The children have 3 questions, always 3 questions: "Where are you going? Can we go? Then who will stay with us?"  Jesus' response - I am going to my Father and your Father.  You cannot come now; you can come later.  But I will not leave you as orphans.  I will send another friend, another helper who will never leave, but who will stay with you forever."(Fred Craddock)

I have to go. This is part of life.  So it is with the disciples.  Part of the life of a disciple is the anticipation for when Jesus will be back and our world will be safe again.  This new heaven and new earth may look different, but it will be home to us.  It is as if he never left at all.