The Absence of Christ
I’m writing a day early because today is Ascension Day—40 days after Easter and ten days before Pentecost.
After his resurrection, Jesus spent 40 days with his disciples, and then “while he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up to heaven.” (Luke 24:51)
On Ascension Day 2020—when we were all working from home—a friend quipped that Ascension marks the day that Jesus also started working from home. It was a funny thing to say at the time, but imagine the roller coaster ride for the disciples, from their despair at Jesus’ death, to their elation at his resurrection—only to have him leave.
If we attend to it, Ascension Day helps us live in that moment. Jesus really did leave. In an important and powerful sense, he is absent.
We know that he promised to send another Comforter, the Holy Spirit. We know he is spiritually present in the Eucharist, which we call his Real Presence. We know that the Church is the Body of Christ. We know that when two or three are gathered in his name he is in their midst. And we know that he promised never to leave us or forsake us. We are not alone, and he is manifesting his presence with us through the Holy Spirit, through the Sacraments, through his Word, and through each other.
But…he is absent as well. He hasn’t yet returned, and though his kingdom has been inaugurated, it has not yet fully come. We live in the tension of now and not yet. And tension is the right word, I think.
This feels especially real to me today, and I’m sure to you, on the heels of two mass shootings this month, in Buffalo, NY—ten black people dead and three others injured at Tops Friendly Market at the hands of a radicalized, conspiracy-believing white man; and in Uvalde, TX—at least twenty-one dead including 19 children and two adults at Robb Elementary School. Both attacks manifestations of what can only be called evil.
It’s not necessary to enumerate all the other cultural and political and sexual confusion and dysfunction and malevolence we’re experiencing in these days, because you already know it and feel it. In fact, everyone knows it and feels it: this is simply not as it ought to be.
Jesus knew that we would live in the tension of now and not yet. He knew that we would feel his absence. So, he gives us the gift of peace within that tension. We can bear the tension of the “now” knowing we are not alone even as we wait for the “not yet”. In fact, our task is to be at peace within the world while seeking to bring the transforming love of Jesus Christ to it.
The Ascension of Christ is the is a perfect blend of sadness and joy. The sadness is there, and we can’t deny it. We want to be with Christ, and we want him to be with us. And the joy is there, too, because he has not left us alone.
Christians can live in this tension with peace. Peace, because he is Lord. Peace, because he gave us a Comforter. Peace, because he will return to us. Peace, because he has grafted us in to his Body on earth and we can take his grace and presence wherever we go. We can bring the peace that passes all understanding to a world desperately in need of it.
The challenge of Ascension Day is to rest in the tension of the absence of Jesus and at the very same time receive his presence right now. This paradox of faith is often uncomfortable and difficult to describe, but it is real. The disciples understood this in some way, even with all their confusion. After Jesus ascended, they “worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the Temple blessing God.” (Luke 24:52-53) They knew his ascension wasn’t an end, but a beginning. It was a call to worship and a call to serve—a call to make his presence known to the ends of the earth.
Steve+
