2 Kings 2:11-12 “As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind. Elisha saw this and cried out, ‘My father! My father! The chariots and horsemen of Israel.’ And Elisha saw him no more.”

People don’t like to talk about death. They don’t even like to use the word. We avoid saying things like, “My father is dead.” We find ways to say it more softly.

When I make hospital calls, I come to remind the person in the bed that God loves them, in spite of the disability of the moment. We talk about God’s promises and power. We pray for healing.

But the day comes when that conversation has to change. It is increasingly clear, or likely, that the patient isn’t going to go home well. We have entered the last stretch of this earthly journey. The finish line is close. We can’t pretend. The time has come to prepare our dying friend to face death well. The time has come to prepare their family and friends, too.

As you may know, there are two people we know of whom God took directly to heaven alive. One of them we have here. Elijah never died. God took him body and soul in the whirlwind. Elisha and the fifty prophets watching from across the Jordan river saw the miracle.

We might think, “But when the people we love die, there is no miracle to see.” It is true there isn’t anything miraculous to see with our eyes. Labored breathing, a slowing heartbeat, the death rattle, and then utter motionlessness–these are far too ordinary, depressingly unmiraculous things to see at the end.

But if we see with eyes of faith, if we believe what Jesus tells us, the angels come. The soul, the real personality of our limp and lifeless friend, steps out of that body, free and unaffected by the years of physical decay, and the unwholesome appetites of a heart infected with sin. A door opens between earth and heaven. The angels carry that soul into the presence of believing friends and family, some who made the trip many years before. Jesus himself is there, with his Father, keeping that soul safe until the day he returns to restore the body and unite it with the soul again.

That is a miracle. And it happens every time a believer goes home. And we can see it in our hearts, if we can’t see it with our eyes, because Jesus gives us eyes of faith. See it, believe it, and you will face death like God’s servants Elijah and Elisha, and uncountable others the angels have carried home.