5-13-19 - Separation Anxiety

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
And I see that this is my 1500th Water Daily post - thank you for being a part of this far-flung community of readers, listeners, responders, fellow travelers and saints of God!)

Nobody likes to be left, not even Jesus’ disciples. In our Eastertide lectionary travels we’re back to the night Jesus was arrested. He says a lengthy farewell to his friends in the upper room where they have just had supper. He has washed their feet, and said strange things about the bread and wine, and predicted that one of them would betray him. Judas has just left to do that. Now Jesus has still more to say to his followers before they go out into the Garden of Gethsemane.

He says something rather opaque about glorifying and being glorified, but the next part is painfully clear: "Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, 'Where I am going, you cannot come.'" 

I think of a child wailing, “Wanna come with! Wanna come with!” as his parents gently but firmly explain why he cannot join them for work or an evening out. “Where I am going, you cannot come.” But a parent usually adds, “I’ll be home later.” Jesus tells his disciples the worst: “I am with you only a little longer.” And soon he would be gone, gone, gone… and then mysteriously back, but not in the same way. Never again in the same way.

The movement of God is always forward, not back. The mystery of God is One in unity, yet Three distinct persons. And one of the mysteries we live with as followers of the risen and ascended Christ is being separate from him, yet mystically united with him. We claim his life lives in us through the Spirit, yet when we pray, it is to an Other distinct from us.

The disciples had to get used to Jesus’ absence. We have a different challenge: to become used to his presence, real though not embodied. For when Jesus made his final departure in bodily form, he promised that his Father would send his Spirit to his followers, that he would be with them through his Spirit.

Children learning to deal with separation from parents are often given a “transitional object,” a blanket or toy or stuffed animal that carries some of the presence of the parent and eases the separating process. Christ-followers are given what we might call the ultimate in transitional objects, the Spirit of the Holy God to fill us, surround us, comfort us, empower us – and remind us that God will never leave us or forsake us.

Separation anxiety is real, and affects us in varying degrees relative to our experiences in early childhood. But in the spiritual life, the Life we live in God’s realm, Jesus is always here, always present. Not only is he never leaving again; he wants us to come out and play.

To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Sunday’s readings are here.