Grace in Gray Hair

Looking forward to our eternal youth

06/15/2022

2 Kgs 2:1, 6-14 When the LORD was about to take Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind, he and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal. Elijah said to Elisha, “Please stay here; the LORD has sent me on to the Jordan.” “As the LORD lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you,” Elisha replied. And so the two went on together. Fifty of the guild prophets followed and when the two stopped at the Jordan, they stood facing them at a distance. Elijah took his mantle, rolled it up and struck the water, which divided, and both crossed over on dry ground. When they had crossed over, Elijah said to Elisha, “Ask for whatever I may do for you, before I am taken from you.”

We don’t like to think about it, but we are all getting older. So, let me ask you: are you growing older gracefully? Someone sent me this funny email about getting older, and maybe you can relate. It said: “I have everything I wanted as a teenager, only 60 years later. I don’t have to go to school or work. I get an allowance every month. I have my own pad. I have a driver’s license and my own car. The people I hang around with are not scared of getting pregnant and I don’t have acne.”

It went on: “I didn’t make it to the gym today. That makes five years in a row. I decided to stop calling the bathroom the “John” and renamed it the “Jim”. I feel so much better saying I went to the Jim this morning. When I was a child I thought “Nap Time” was a punishment. Now it feels like a small vacation. The biggest lie I tell myself is “I don’t need to write that down, I’ll remember it”. I don’t have gray hair, I have “wisdom highlights”. I’m just very wise. If God wanted me to touch my toes, he would have put them on my knees.”

Okay, here’s the end of the email: “Last year I joined a support group for procrastinators. We haven’t met yet. Why do I press 1 for English when you’re just going to transfer me to someone I can’t understand anyway? Of course I talk to myself. Sometimes I need expert advice. At my age “Getting lucky” means walking into a room and remembering what I came in there for.” In other words, the author of the email is trying to look on the bright side of getting older. He’s hoping for some grace in the gray hair.

The first reading today is one of my favorite episodes in the Old Testament. Why? Because Elijah teaches Elisha how to find the grace in the gray hair. 2 Kings 2 relates how Elijah was taken up into heaven in a fiery chariot. But before his departure, he says to Elisha, his apprentice: “Ask for whatever I may do for you, before I am taken up from you.” Notice Elijah is not trying to recreate his youth as he gets older, like the author of the email wished for.

Rather, Elijah has his eyes fixed not on earthly youth of the past, but on the eternal youth of Paradise. That is the real grace in the gray hair: not in avoiding school and work, or getting an allowance, or daily nap time, or not fearing pregnancy. But the wisdom to understand that real life has yet to begin, like a baby in the womb about to be born. Those thoughts are our “wisdom highlights,” how we grow old gracefully.

My friends, the grace in the gray hair is found by looking forward to heaven instead of looking backward to our childhood and youth. Let me share a few insights about what our bodies may be like in heaven offered by Scott Hahn. He wrote: “In heaven, our bodies will do whatever we want them to do, and they will do it perfectly: they will dunk basketballs, do pirouettes, leap tall buildings and fly through the air.”

He goes on: “If you want to stand in a green meadow in heaven, all you have to do is think that thought, and you’ll be there. If you want to see your great-great-great grandpa in heaven, you will…instantaneously, as soon as you want to see him. Essentially, your body will travel at the speed of your thoughts.”

Finally, he adds, and this is really good news for those of us who are getting older: “The bodies that frustrate us with their weakness, cripple us with illness and injury, and slow us down with age will become matter infused and suffused with glory. They will be capable of feats that even the most powerful superheroes would never attempt in comic books.”

In a sense, that is what Elijah was looking forward to as he climbed aboard his final fiery chariot ride: the eternal youth of Paradise. He was looking up to heaven, not glancing back to earth. We are all getting older, but are we all growing older gracefully? That depends on the choice we make: are we looking backward to earthly youth or looking forward to eternal youth?

Praised be Jesus Christ!