This past week I asked several people to do an exercise with me. Perhaps you could take a moment to do the same now. Consider someone that you hold dear. Who is someone that is important to you, someone who you love? Now imagine that you find out that you only have one week left to live. What would you want to say to that person? What is the one thing you would like to leave with them?
I got a wide range of responses: “I love you,” “Thank you,” “Live with no regrets,” “Keep living life and enjoying it to the fullest,” etc. I asked this question while leading worship at Harmony River and one person said, “So long, it’s been good to know you.”
Jesus knew he was going to die. In the middle of a long goodbye, he recognized that he still had things to say to those he loved. Some things would never be said but he promised that the relationship would continue after he died. There would be a holy game of hide and seek: “A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while and you will see me” (John 16:16).
June 12 was Holy Trinity Sunday. I confess that I struggle to understand exactly how it all works — how God can be three in one. Perhaps the Iris DeMent song, “Let the Mystery Be” would be apropos here. One thing I can wrap my mind around, however, is that the Triune God is a God of relationship. There is a great dance of love that flows between the God who set this universe in motion, and the Jesus who walked this earth, and the resurrected presence of Christ who shows up to us today through the Holy Spirit.
We too are wired for relationship. There is a great dance of God’s love that flows between us and through all of creation. However, a theologian that I appreciate, Father Richard Rohr, says that within this flow “sin is elegantly simple to understand.” It is “whatever stops the flow.”
When I brought up this passage about last words to loved ones recently with someone in the community, they told me a story about stopping the flow. They told about some conflict they had with a sister who lived out of state. The sister was in town visiting and during a family photo the sister reached out her hand as a sign of reconciliation. But this person would not accept the hand. Two months later the sister died. That was the last time this person saw their sister. That person told me about her deep regret wishing that they had held hands and said “I’m sorry.”
We are human and stop God’s love that flows through us. I was hurrying recently, messed up big time, and hurt someone at church. I thank God for forgiveness, and the presence of love that shows up in last words and surprising places.
— The Rev. Hans Peterson is pastor at River of Hope Church in Hutchinson.
