Reverend Marci Scott-Weis, MDIV

So, our theme for this Lenton season has centered around moving out of wilderness and coming home to our God. Today, I want to talk about homecoming to God in a deep and eternal sense. I want to talk about the reunion with God that happens once our lives are at their end. I want to talk about coming home to God when we die.

Now most of you know that being a pastor is my third career. My first career was as a nurse. And straight out of college, I started working nights in a surgical intensive care unit at a level one trauma center. In that unit, not only did we see the worst of the worst of trauma cases, but we also handled all complex surgical patients. Folks with multi-organ transplants and with massive surgical complications.
One of my first patients was a seventeen year old girl who was on her second liver transplant. Her body had rejected the first transplant and because she became so very ill and close to death, she went to the top of the transplant list and subsequently received a second transplant. Within a period of about two weeks, this girl had undergone two massive surgeries and all of the subsequent complications, only leaving the ICU to return to the operating room.

I was a new graduate nurse, and she was a very complicated and challenging patient to take care of. I honestly focused all of my energy on the machines and the procedures and the seemingly endless administration of life-saving medications. I rarely had a moment to focus on the humanity of the person that I was caring for.

That was, until her second liver transplant began to fail. When that happened, she became unresponsive and the pace of procedures and medications escalated as we worked to keep her alive until a third liver could become available for an emergency transplant. It was a race against time as her body began to shut down.

A few nights after it was determined that this young girl both needed and was listed for a third liver transplant, her parents came to the room. Now, this was unusual. They were usually there with her during the day and often would go home to sleep at night and return the next day and do it all over again.

But that night, they came to the room and asked for some time to be alone with their daughter. After they had that time, the parents asked to speak with me and the on-call resident. They told us that they had decided that it was time to let their daughter go, that they could not put her through another transplant and that it was more appropriate to let someone else receive the next transplant.

We listened and then the resident wrote the orders to discontinue the treatments and begin palliative care. And I began to disconnect tubes and to turn off machines. I dimmed the lights and made her comfortable. Her mom and I gently massaged her limbs. Her parents talked to her of their favorite memories with her. And a few hours later, when her heart stopped, it almost seemed that the world took a deep breath in and paused.

Words can’t really describe what happened next, so forgive me for falling short in finding the words to tell this story. But the only way that I can describe what happened that night, is that as that young girl died and the world seemingly took that deep breath in and paused, the exhale that came felt as if the universe itself released a breath of love.

And while there were tears and sadness, there was also this realization that we had all been a part of something peaceful, something comforting, something precious and something sacred.

After that experience, I was a witness to many deaths. I continued to work as an ICU nurse and ultimately transitioned to hospice nursing. During those times, I witnessed unanticipated deaths, and I witnessed deaths where there had been lots of planning and preparation. I witnessed deaths where there was no family or loved ones present and I witnessed deaths where the dying person was surrounded by their most special loved ones.

And like that first experience of being present at a death with my young transplant patient, regardless of how the death occurred or who was present, the ones that followed all held that moment of sacred tenderness, that moment of peace and comfort and preciousness. And they all held that moment where it felt like the world took a deep breath in, paused and exhaled, releasing the very breath of love.
I remember years ago, having a conversation with a group of folks about witnessing death and realizing how unusual my familiarity and experiences were with those final transitions. I just kind of assumed that most people have been witness to that precious moment when someone dies, when the world takes a breath in, pauses and breaths out that breath of love. It seems to be uncommon in our culture to be present at those final moments of life and witness that transition.

As a late in life Pastor, I often feel as if my story has come full circle. I carry with me those earlier sacred witnesses to death and I now place them within the framework of my own personal understanding of God. Central to my understanding of the divine are the foundational realities of relationship and love. I believe that we are in relationship, in a sacred dance of sorts, with God.

I also believe that we are held by God in vast and unknowably huge amounts of love. And I believe that our very best and most loving relationships in this life, reflect that great love that God has for us. So, I’m going to ask you to take a moment and think of a time where you knew with 100% confidence that you were loved by someone or that you loved someone. If you are comfortable, close your eyes. And take a big breath in of that remembered experience of love. Pause and relish that feeling of love.

The love that God has for us, the love that God holds us in, is that memory of love times infinity, deeper than we can ever imagine. And that love in which we are held in this life, that relationship with God, it doesn’t end when we die. It is that divine relationship and that vast and unknowably huge love that embraces us when we die. When we die, it is that divine relationship and that vast and unknowably huge love that welcomes us home.

The scripture from the Gospel of John that we heard earlier assures us that our eternal home is in God’s embrace. That scripture assures us that what awaits us at the end of this life is peace and welcome. It reassures us that when we die, we do not die into aloneness or separateness, instead, when we die, we come home. We come home in the most beautiful understanding of the word home.
I believe that experience of homecoming was what I witnessed at the bedside the night my young patient died. In words that fail, in words that fall short, in words that can never adequately describe that transition, in that moment when she died, the world took a deep breath, paused and released a breath of love. She was home.

I believe with every part of me, that when we die, we are met, we are seen, we are known, we are held, we are comforted, we are welcomed, and we are loved.

We are home.

Praise be to the God who embraces us with tender arms when we die.

Praise be to the God who meets us with vast and unknowably huge love when we die.

Praise be to the God who has prepared a home for us and will be there to welcome us when it is time for us each to come home.

Praise be to God!

Amen