The paradox of this Sunday after the Ascension is that we observe not only Christ’s real presence among us but we also remember Christ’s real absence. Just as Ascension Day marks a pivotal point in the lives of the disciples and of the nascent church, just as the story of Jesus’ ascension into heaven marks the turning point from concluding the gospel of Luke and beginning the Book of Acts, so this moment marks the final turn from the season of Easter wherein we remember the resurrection, to the Feast of Pentecost, when we commemorate the gift of the Holy Spirit. We stand in a liminal place, a place of change, a holy place as all transitional places are.
John’s Gospel records words about Jesus’ departure. These words come from Jesus’ last evening with the disciples, when the hour had come, the hour when Jesus, who ‘had loved his disciples who were in the world, loved them to the end.’ Before Gethsemane, he prays for them, and the words of his long prayer are what we have just heard in part. Our eavesdropping in on Jesus’ prayer is unusual—normally we are simply told how he goes off to pray. Here, we hear his anguished and sincere words. We hear words of trust, knowledge and strength—about himself, his followers and his God. This prayer is called his ‘high priestly prayer,’ because in it, Jesus sums up all the acts and words of love that have made up his life. Before crucifixion, he consecrates himself to God and ends his prayer with words that recall one of the major themes of the gospel of John, mutual indwelling (which we have heard these past three weeks): ‘that they may be one even as you and I are one.’
In this prayer of consecration, Jesus offers his full life, his soon-to-be-completed life, his life of Real Presence to God. We celebrate his self-giving every time we come together to break bread and share in the cup, every time we have a baptism, when a new member is welcomed into God’s household. In these moments of prayer and consecration, our lives make manifest together the promises and realities of God for all creation. Our community, our communion, our celebrations, our fullness, all this here and everywhere are our responses to Jesus’ high priestly prayer. In these acts, we remember Jesus’ Real Presence.
But remember, that when Jesus consecrates himself to God, he also consecrates his disciples with the words: ‘All mine are yours and all yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.’ And then he adds in those words that remind us of what is going to happen next, ‘And now that I am no more in the world, but they are in the world (and I am coming to you).’
Even as we listen in on this conversation between Jesus and his Father in heaven, to the celebration of the good and real presence of God, a crack appears, the intimations of a separation. As counter-intuitive as it is, Jesus’ words prior to his death, recounted on the Sunday after the Ascension, speak not only of his consecration and of his Real Presence, of his love and fullness, but also of his impending Real Absence, his final act and farewell. The juxtaposition of these words of prayer and event—perhaps more easily heard so close to the feast of the Pentecost than during Holy Week—the prayer for unity on the Sunday of separation, call us to consider what presence and absence mean for us, especially when it comes to our relationship with God.
How do we deal with the paradox inherent in scripture that Jesus' final act of love is not to stay, but to leave? Oh yes, the biblical account makes clear that in order for Pentecost and the gift of the Holy Spirit to occur, Jesus had to leave. How then, do we recognise that real presence and real absence alike consecrate life, call us into community where there is unity because of the holy spaces of separation?
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At some point or another in our lives, we all have to deal with separation and absences and figuring out how we keep present in our hearts the absent person, whether living or dead. We joke about separation anxiety that two-year olds experience, but even at fifty or seventy years, that anxiety might quietly lurk beneath the surface. It’s part of our human condition—to care enough that when the persons and places that matter to us are far away, we feel their absence. Abiding in one another can be exquisite, transporting one to the heavens. Lovers know that, parents and children know that. However, when suddenly that mutual indwelling no longer exists, one’s life can be rent asunder and a chasm can form in one’s heart and life.
That is one of the big separations in our lives—the end of a relationship or friendship either by mutual choice or by one person opting out, either gently or wrenchingly; the death of a love held so deeply and for so long that leaves a hole that seems like it can never be filled. But there are other separations and losses: moving away from a place where we have spent a good chunk of our lives, like selling our parents’ home, changing vocations or careers, letting go of one hope to find another—and the final separation that, for a time, changes our relationship with those we love, the dead.
There are some losses that seem unrecoverable, unredeemable. How do we make any and all of those spaces holy? How do we stay connected to pieces of our lives that matter? How do we find God there?
Somehow, the human spirit has figured out how to keep close those distant, to hallow those spaces and absences in our lives even in the midst of sorrow.
In what may seem like circular logic, I’ll admit it, that’s where our relationship with Jesus comes into the picture. Most of us have never really seen Christ. But many of us know deep inside that Jesus’ presence is as real as yours or mine. It’s something we feel—something as tangible as putting my hand into yours. Christ’s presence is as real as having someone stand behind us, their hands on our shoulders. We just know it in our hearts. We have made holy the absence and actually made real the presence. It works, really! Somehow we have understood what John means about Christ abiding in us and we in Christ, this wondrous indwelling that is one of the gifts of the Spirit. If we have Christ dwelling within us, perhaps some of those other real losses may hurt less.
Somehow that confidence in Christ’s real presence means that we who celebrate this real presence can also celebrate his real absence. And the way we do that is to turn our longing gaze from heaven back to the earth where Christ’s presence was made known among us, to find Christ in one another and to consecrate ourselves, each other and all our lives to God.
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