Acts 16:22-34 / John 16:5-11
The word "goodbye" is often used to express good wishes when parting or at the end of a conversation.
But goodbye often also has that meaning that we will meet another time and that goodbye isn't going to be forever.
In other words, when we say "goodbye" it is for the moment, and we hope to meet again soon.
In fact, it seems that the original goodbye, dating from the 1570s, was "godbwye", which was a contraction of the farewell phrase "God be with ye!"
In the gospel, Jesus was like saying goodbye to His disciples and His disciples were sad at heart to hear it.
And then He tells them this: I must tell you the truth - it is for your own good that I am going because unless I go, the Advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send Him to you.
And we now know what Jesus meant, that He will send us the Holy Spirit to be our Advocate and to let us experience that Jesus is with us in spirit.
Truly, for us "goodbye" means that "God be with you".
Jesus is certainly not absent from us. In fact, Jesus is very present to us in the Holy Spirit.
So the next time when we say "goodbye" we are actually sharing a blessing of Jesus' presence with others.
May we always cherish this blessing of Jesus' presence and not doubt that He is not with us.