When Goodbye Isn't The End

When Goodbye Isn’t the End

Based on Genesis 12:1-9 and 2 Kings 2:1-18

Khen Lim



Image source: tinybuddha.com

It’s a known fact that churches have been closing every year throughout the world for the last two thousand years. It might be upsetting to face the fact that the figures are not flattering.

The shamelessly-liberal Huffington Post in October 2013 quoted Southern Baptist researcher Thom Rainer as saying that from 8,000 to 10,000 churches were expected to close for the year 2013. With their typical parsimonious attitude towards Christianity, bad news for the faith is good news worth reporting for them. 

Yet two years on, Charisma News quoted a 2015 LifeWay National Church Planting Study that said new Protestant churches in America are mushrooming faster than they’re closing. Apparently 4,000 new churches were opened in 2014, eclipsing the 3,700 that closed a year before.

And seemingly, across the Atlantic, Evangelical Alliance in 2014 reported a similar phenomenon in the U.K. with 50,660 registered churches in 2013 as opposed to 49,727 in 2008. According to Peter Brierley’s ‘UK Church Statistics 2: 2010-2020’ report, the estimate for the year 2020 is 51,275.

Abraham shows the way

If we set our context against this intriguing backdrop, the coming closure of our church, Hosanna Evangelical Free Church (EFC) may offer us room to look at our future differently, perhaps, ironically, even optimistically. To begin with, let’s first read from Genesis 12:1-9 (NLT):

¹ “The Lord has said to Abram, ‘Leave your native country, your relatives and your father’s family and go to the land that I will show you. ² I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous and you will be a blessing to others. ³ I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.’

⁴ “So Abram departed as the Lord had instructed and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran. ⁵ He took his wife, Sarai, his nephew Lot and all his wealth – his livestock and all the people he had taken into his household at Haran – and headed for the land of Canaan. When they arrived in Canaan, ⁶ travelled through the land as far as Shechem. There he set up camp beside the oak of Moreh. At that time, the area was inhabited by Canaanites.

⁷ “Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, ‘I will give this land to your descendants.’ And Abram built an altar there and dedicated it to the Lord, who had appeared to him. ⁸ After that, Abram travelled south and set up camp in the hill country, with Bethel to the west and Ai to the east. There, he built another altar and dedicated it to the Lord, and he worshipped the Lord. ⁹ Then Abram continued travelling south by stages toward the Negev.”

From one of our very oldest Biblical ancestors, we come to the story of how God instructed Abraham to depart from the place where he has inherited family roots. It was a place he had known. God didn’t just tell him to go. In fact He told him that in following His plan, there would be a brand new place awaiting him and his family’s arrival. He would not only be shown this vast piece of land but his name would be blessed and he would be made great before all nations.

From being a nobody in an ancient civilisation, God picked him out and told him to simply – blindly, if you like – follow His instructions to which He will show him an incredible inheritance that would be beyond his imagination and somewhere he and his family would call home. There, he would be God’s elected covenantal line from which the divine genealogy would be created.

If you were Abraham, your head would probably be spinning by now. Suddenly, God spoke to him and told him His radical plan that would not just uproot him but completely alter his life. Was he petrified? I’m sure he was. Was he in doubt? I wouldn’t be surprised if he was. Did he really believe it? He might have found it difficult at first. Or did a part of him simply wanted to cling on to what he was comfortable with and not want anything to change? I’d think so.

In Abraham’s shoes, I’d likely say, “Whoa, hold on there. What’s all this about, God? Why the big change? Why take me and my family to some place I don’t even know of when we’re really comfortable where we are? How do you know that I really want to go anyway? At any rate, do I even have a choice?”

From the Bible, we all know he acceded to God’s command and eventually packed up everything and went along with His idea. Scripture also tells us that God did as He promised. The land was there and it was Abraham’s to claim. God said he would be the father of all nations and that was what he became when Sarah gave birth to Isaac.

Thousands of years later, long after Abraham was dead and gone, the Book of Hebrews reveal to all of us what it was that the patriarch did in his life after he reached the land God promised him. The author of Hebrews proclaimed him as a legacy builder, the architect of a brand new place, one from which descendants would emerge over a great number of generations that would be far greater in number than the stars in the sky or the grains of sand on the beach.

The great thing about all of this is that none of us have to take Scripture’s word for it. Look around you and see for yourself all his descendants. And that includes you and me. We are all a remarkable testimony of what Abraham had become and how God moulded him to fit His narrative. The exciting thing is that if God would do this to a practically unknown family – Abraham and Sarah – what could He do for all of us who are truly a grand part of His lasting legacy? What could be on His agenda in terms of where we would go after our church closes, what we could do and how we could exercise our capabilities, all in fulfilling His expectations in us!

Using Elisha, God teaches us

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What Genesis 12:1-9 tells us is that God is not done with all of us at Hosanna EFC. Not by a long shot. And certainly not anywhere near what we’re all capable of accomplishing. We’ve come this far now and on the day that our church will see its doors open for Sunday Service for the very last time, we know therefore that goodbye isn’t the end but instead, a new beginning where we have new opportunities to spread our wings and do even greater things for God.

We’re definitely not done yet even as we say goodbye to our little faithful church because we will be welcoming the prospects of a new place to call home. It’s like leaving the home we’ve grown up in only to move to newer pastures and finding another where we will set down new roots, find new friends, share our lives with and grow in a new direction. And all of this opens up exciting vistas to bring different people to Christ, people we wouldn’t have had if we had stayed on. That all, of course, makes today a little of a bittersweet thing.

Some years back, members of our church were deeply engaged in a hard confrontation with possible closure. This was a dialogue that had been a long time coming but it took a financial crisis to force all of us to face up to. It certainly wasn’t easy for some of us. It was emotional because pent-up frustrations spilled over in some cases for certain people. It also meant the end of the road for some members who could not align themselves any further with how we needed to resolve the longstanding issues that many did not want to talk about. And yet we did. We managed to move on.

Two months ago, we propped ourselves up again and this time, we took the collective unanimous vote that it was finally the time to come to an end. It was a momentous agreement, sad though it was, to finally close our doors. In that time leading to today, some have had expressions of regret not because the church was closing but whether or not we had let God down. Would the Lord view us as failures? Would He say to each and every one of us, “You did not do enough. You did not honour My legacy.”

When it comes to feeling guilty, it’s a vulnerability many of us are familiar with. In a situation such as the church closing, the tendency for some of us is to crack up and crumble under the weight of our own conscience. Some of us genuinely wonder if we really could have done better almost to the point of beating ourselves up about it. However when we keep banging our heads wanting answers, we could lose sight of the question: Did we honour God with what we have done? To put that more succinctly, did we or have we done our best to honour Him?

And as I persist thinking about it, I think the answer is not just a ‘yes’ but a very human ‘yes’ because we have to take into account all the flaws and imperfections we embody as well as the failures, mistakes and shortcomings along the way. All of these meant that even if things didn’t quite turn out the way all of us would have wanted, our hearts were in the right place. We all wanted to give our best even if the results mightn’t reflect it.

In short, we have honoured our faith as best as possible. Sure, we could’ve done better but we mustn’t forget that what we have learned will equip us to go on and do even better. If there is anything important we can take away with us to our next churches, it is this – we are better today than we were before – and this alone suggests why and how Hosanna EFC has done well.

When all’s said and done, goodbyes are always hard. It gets harder when you’ve been in the same church long enough to feel some form of emptiness when it closes its doors for the last time. For that, let’s look at 2 Kings 2:1-18 (NLT):

¹ “When the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were travelling from Gilgal. ² And Elijah said to Elisha, ‘Stay here, for the Lord has told me to go to Bethel.’ But Elisha replied, ‘As surely as the Lord lives and you yourself live, I will never leave you!’ So they went down together to Bethel.

³ “The group of prophets from Bethel came to Elisha and asked him, ‘Did you know that the Lord is going to take your master away from you today?’ ‘Of course I know,’ Elisha answered. ‘But be quiet about it.’ ⁴ Then Elijah said to Elisha, ‘Stay here, for the Lord has to me to go to Jericho.’ But Elisha replied again, ‘As surely as the Lord lives and you yourself live, I will never leave you.’ So they went on together to Jericho.

⁵ “Then the group of prophets from Jericho came to Elisha and asked him, ‘Did you know that the Lord is going to take your master away from you today?’ ‘Of course I know,’ Elisha answered. ‘But be quiet about it.’ ⁶ Then Elijah said to Elisha, ‘Stay here, for the Lord has told me to go to the Jordan River.’ But again Elisha replied, ‘As surely as the Lord lives and you yourself live, I will never leave you.’ So they went on together.

⁷ “Fifty men from the group of prophets also went and watched from a distance as Elijah and Elisha stopped beside the Jordan River. ⁸ Then Elijah folded his cloak together and struck the water with it. The river divided and the two of them went across on dry ground! ⁹ When they came to the other side, Elijah said to Elisha, ‘Tell me what I can do for you before I am taken away.’ And Elisha replied, ‘Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit and become your successor.’ ¹⁰ ‘You have asked a difficult thing,’ Elijah replied. ‘If you see me when I am taken from you, then you will get your request. But if not, then you won’t.’

¹¹ “As they were walking along and talking, suddenly a chariot of fire appeared, drawn by horses of fire. It drove between the two men, separating them, and Elijah was carried by a whirlwind into heaven. ¹² Elisha saw it and cried out, ‘My father! My father! I see the chariots and charioteers of Israel!’ And as they disappeared from sight, Elisha tore his clothes in distress. ¹³ Elisha picked up Elijah’s cloak, which had fallen when he was taken up. Then Elisha returned to the bank of the Jordan River. ¹⁴ He struck the water with Elijah’s cloak and cried out, ‘Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?’ Then the river divided and Elisha went across.

¹⁵ “When the group of prophets from Jericho saw from a distance what happened, they exclaimed, ‘Elijah’s spirit rests upon Elisha!’ And they went to meet him and bowed to the ground before him. ¹⁶ ‘Sir,’ they said, ‘just say the word and fifty of our strongest men will search the wilderness for your master. Perhaps the Spirit of the Lord has left him on some mountain or in some valley.’ ‘No,’ Elisha said, ‘don’t send them.’ ¹⁷ But they kept urging him until they shamed him into agreeing and he finally said, ‘All right, send them.’ So fifty men searched for three days but did not find Elijah. ¹⁸ Elisha was still at Jericho when they returned. ‘Didn’t I tell you not to go?’ he asked.

The story of the two prophets – Elijah and Elisha – brings into sharp focus a reluctantly hard goodbye. A young Elisha looked up on Elijah as a model to emulate and had much to learn from. When Elijah was taken up into heaven in a fiery chariot, Elisha felt completely lost even though he knew that the day would come when both of them would be separated. 

The two prophets were the perfect team. They were the ideal partnership in ministry in which Elijah adopted the Elisha when he was but a young man. At that time, Elisha was working in a field when Elijah saw him and approached. To demonstrate his intention to adopt him, Elijah flailed his prophet’s cloak over Elisha.

Thereafter, both Elijah and the young Elisha travelled together on a long road of hard ministry but along the way, they witnessed the power of God at work in unimaginable ways. They shared adventures but they also cared deeply for one another. In time to come, their ministry together had turned out so successful that they became inseparable or at least that was how the younger Elisha felt so strongly about. That of course only made the inevitable goodbye much harder.

As the verses show, regardless of how they delayed the parting of ways (1-6), the day came swiftly when the fiery chariot swept in and took Elijah up in a mysterious divine whirlwind, leaving behind not just his prophetic cloak that fluttered to the ground but also the hapless Elisha who was overcome with deep grief. In despair, he tore his own clothes apart (12). 

Then he picked up Elijah’s cloak and headed home. As he met the Jordan River, he struck the water with Elijah’s cloak and cried out, “Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?” The waters parted and he crossed the river where he entered a new phase in his own ministry without Elijah by his side anymore (13-14).

Verses 13 and 14 are significant. With the cloak in hand, Elisha asked where God was in his life now that his mentor was gone, the answer was made clear when the Jordan River parted for him. God was telling Elisha that He was right where he needed Him to be. He was with Elisha. The God of Elijah was also the God of Elisha. His mentor might be gone from his life but God was not going anywhere at all. He was right there with Elisha.

In other words, as the waters parted, it was as if God was answering a very anguished Elisha. It was as if He was saying to him, “My presence is not confined to only one person or in one place or at any one time.” God had worked hand in hand with Elijah to reach out to His people of Israel and to teach and inspire them just as He would with Elisha. Even in the midst of very hard goodbyes, God is faithfully with us yesterday, today and forever.

There is much left to do

So, no, we didn’t do anything wrong. We should not feel guilty about how far we have come with Hosanna EFC. We didn’t fall short. And we couldn’t have done better, given our circumstances. In fact we have done all we could possibly do to honour God. We’ve done it through love and care. 

We’ve done it by being as good stewards as we could be. In the most trying of time, we’ve done it by placing our trust in God for He never forgets any of us. And right now, God has called all of us to new and different homes in order to make us great. And certainly, He wants us to be great in order to honour Him.

So today, we leave things the way they are at Hosanna EFC. As we complete the service, we will share a cup of tea and some snacks before we turn off the lights for the last time. As we do so, may we remind ourselves of our commitment to carry on honouring God for He has honoured us. 

May we continue to allow Him to mould us into people who serve Him unstintingly, faithfully and powerfully. May we remain hopeful that as we join another community of faith, we seek to amplify our heart of servitude to Him, seeking nothing but to bring Him pleasure.

God promised us a blessing. And He will now meet each and every one of us on the journey to our next quest. It should be exciting.

Goodbye isn’t what you think

Even as we hug and bid each other farewell for the last time, none of us like to say goodbye. Yet, ‘goodbye’ is not the incorrect thing to say. On the contrary, ‘goodbye’ doesn’t mean it’s the end. 

In the sixteenth century, the original word was ‘godbwye,’ which was a contraction of the greeting, ‘God be with ye’ in line with other daily greetings such as ‘good day,’ ‘good afternoon,’ ‘good evening’ and ‘goodnight.’ In other words, when we say ‘goodbye,’ we offer one another hope and blessings.

Let us therefore, instead, extend our hands to all our brothers and sisters in Christ and all who have attended Hosanna EFC in faith and loyalty and say to one another, ‘God be with you; God go with you, now and always.’