JOHN 16:22-24
22 So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. 23 In that day you will no longer ask me anything. Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 24 Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.
Good morning. We have reached the end of another season of Lent. Christian brothers and sisters around the world used this 40 day span to prepare for the celebration of Easter Sunday with the help of numerous spiritual disciplines including prayer, fasting, and generosity.
The aim of Lent does not stop at the absence of luxuries, but also intends for us to feel the presence of a conversion stirring in our hearts to help us follow Christ more faithfully. The more I think about it the more I come to see how much our lives, how much of our faith is defined by those two realities. Absence and Presence.
All of us have felt the presence of relief when trust is validated or witnessed the absence of assurance when hope is discredited. If you’ve lived any amount of time at all, then you know what it feels like to spend evenings in the presence of someone you love until one morning you start spending your days enduring their absence.
Absence and presence also accompany us when we come together at the Lord’s Supper. Of course, there is no denying the very real presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper. The broken bread symbolizes Christ giving His physical body, and the wine represents the shed blood of Christ.
At the same time, however, the use of symbols and emblems also make us painfully aware of the undeniable absence of Christ. While the Lord’s Supper possesses the ability to bring us much needed comfort, peace and joy; it also contains unwelcomed reminders of the violent manner in which Christ was taken from us.
But before He was taken, Christ made sure to make one thing abundantly clear in John 16. Death can steal the Savior, but it cannot steal the promise. Let me say that again. Death can steal the Savior, but it cannot steal the promise.
And if we leave the Lord’s Supper knowing anything, it is that what applies to the Savior applies to us. Yes, the absence of good health can pillage our confidence, but it cannot abduct our hope. Yes, the absence of good friends can plunder our happiness, but it cannot rob our joy. Yes, the absence of good times can ransack our peace, but it cannot snatch our faith.
So this morning let us not be afraid to acknowledge the absences in our lives, and instead take courage in that which is present...God’s love, the possibility of reconciliation, and of course, each other.
Happy Easter
CJE