1 - The Presence of the Absence

The Presence of the Absence
By Hugh T. Kerr

As the Christian calendar marks time, we are somewhere along the sequence between the First Sunday in Advent (Dec. 1, 1985) and Ascension Day (May 8, 1986). At Christmas, we celebrate a new beginning as God comes down to earth in the theophany of the Incarnation. On Ascension Day, the Jesus of history disappears into eternity from whence he came.

We find it easy to keep Christmas, but Ascension Day goes past mostly unnoticed. Well, why not? How can we celebrate the absence of the presence? It is not, of course, an ultimate or final disappearance. Pentecost is just around the corner, and the promise of the Parousia, however long delayed, keeps hope alive.

But suppose we take a reflective pause at the moment of Ascension when Jesus who came down to earth in human form carries back to heaven the spiritual body with which he was resurrected. What would it mean to explore the theological significance of the hiatus between the first and second coming? Leaving to one side, at the moment, questions of figurative language and critical interpretation, what is the meaning for faith of Jesus' disappearing act?

I

To begin with, if we take seriously the implication of the Ascension, and, indeed, of Pentecost ten days later, the Jesus of Galilee, so dear to the hearts of believers and preachers, is no longer directly available. We are not, as Kierkegaard suggested, contemporaneous with the historical Jesus as if he were here now.

If we covet for ourselves the presence of the teller of parables, the worker of miracles, the prophet of the Kingdom, the friend of little children, and the redeemer of the lost, we must also reckon with the Scriptures that this Jesus is no longer present but absent. It is difficult, but necessary, to keep reminding ourselves that the Jesus we worship, the name in which we pray, the Lord and Savior of our souls is the risen, glorified Christ who "sits" at the right hand of God.

The New Testament is clear and unambiguous about this absence of the presence. In addition to the Ascension references ("he parted from them," Lk. 24:5 1; "a cloud took him out of their sight," Acts 1:9). there are other, sometimes subtle, allusions to the absence. On Easter morn-

2 - The Presence of the Absence

ing, the Angel at the tomb tells the women, "he is not here" (Matt. 28:6), and Jesus says to Mary, "do not hold me" (Jn. 20:17). At Emmaus, after breaking bread with the two disciples, "he vanished out of their sight" (Lk. 24:31).

In John's Gospel especially, Jesus tells the disciples that he must "go away" (Jn. 14:28) and that they will see him "no more" (Jn. 16:17). This declaration of impending absence is, of course, correlated with the promise of the Paraclete (Counselor, Comforter, Helper, Spirit). The new divine presence is to become even more real and powerful than during the earthly life of Jesus (Jn. 14:12), because "the Counselor, the Holy Spirit … will teach you all things, and bring to remembrance all that I have said…. [and] will guide you into all the truth" (Jn. 14:26; 16:13).

We are not talking of a few texts to prove a point. The classic Christian sequence celebrates in creed and liturgy, in the sacraments and the life and mission of the church the absence of the presence, while at the same time rejoicing in the "spiritual" presence of the absence. But the sequence is important, for it suggests, theologically, that the Christ mission could not be fulfilled until the historical Jesus vanished.

In commenting on Jesus' word, "the poor you always have will you, but you do not always have me" (Jn. 12:8), Augustine makes the essential emphasis:

He was speaking of the presence of his body…. According to that which was born of the Virgin, seized and fixed on the cross, taken down and wrapped in linens, laid in the sepulcher, manifested in the resurrection, "you do not always have me with you.". . . The church had him according to the presence of the flesh for a few days [after the resurrection]; now she possesses him by faith; she does not see him with eyes (PL. 35:1763).

II

Suppose we now consider some of the negative and positive implications for theology issuing from the absence of the presence and the presence of the absence. The promise of the presence cannot be fulfilled until after the absence of the presence. The time of the historical Jesus must end so the new time of the Spirit can dawn.

The work of the Spirit is, of course, to testify to the Christ with power and truth. So the Spirit, as it were, becomes the stand-in or surrogate for the historical Jesus, "spirating" his mission and message, and making Christ's work of redemption "efficacious" (in Calvin's apt word).

This is the familiar sequence of the Apostles' Creed. After the death of Christ, historically dated as "under Pontius Pilate," the declaration about the Holy Spirit leads into "the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting." In other words, the theology of the third article of the creed understands the presence of Christ in the church and in Christian experience as the work of the Spirit. This is the same usually occluded person of the Trinity who brooded over the formless waters of

3 - The Presence of the Absence

creation, acted as the agent of conception at the time of Jesus' birth, and functions freely beyond human manipulation, blowing wherever, like the wind.

If the presence of the absent Christ comes through this free Spirit, does this possibly mean that we should abandon all attempts to grasp at other faith supports? If it is the Spirit that deputizes for the Christ, why do we keep questing for the historical Jesus, buttressing our doctrines of biblical authority, refining our orthodoxies, and pursuing rational grounds for demonstrating the truth of our faith?

On the positive side, does the new age of the Spirit free us from traditional theological and cultural restraints for a new openness toward the future? We can think of at least three possibilities.

First, since the Spirit is, so to say, "nameless," even though textual arguments are advanced for both masculine and feminine forms, a new appreciation of the function rather than the person of the Spirit might come as a breakthrough in our current gender controversy. As Jung has noted in his discussion of the Trinity, the duality implied in the Father-Son relationship is symbolically transcended as the Spirit "rounds out the three and restores the one." Is this part of what Rosemary Radford Ruether means when she says that "the maleness of Jesus has no ultimate significance"?

In the second place, an awareness of the presence of the absence through the Spirit could provide those of us in the classic Christian tradition with a sense of theological camaraderie with innumerable charismatic and independent pentecostal types of experience, and possibly even with those of other religious traditions which might be open to pneumatology but not christology. If the Creator God is "above" us, and the Redeemer God is "with" us, the Sanctifier God is "within" us as "the breath of God" which first gave us life. The perils of "spiritualizing" theology are obvious and should be heeded, but in our day what H. Richard Niebuhr once called the "unitarianism of the Spirit" may be less dangerous and more promising than other theological options before us.

And thirdly, an understanding of the Spirit's role in making present the absence of Christ could inform our social witness with new resolve and conviction. Let two examples suffice.

In the Gospel judgment scene (Matt. 25), sheep and goats are divided according to whether they feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome strangers, cloth the naked, visit the sick, and help those in prison. The test for moral and social responsibility apparently relates to a humane spirit of loving care rather than a theological or christological imperative. "As you did it to one of the least …. you did it to me" (Matt. 25:40).

No clearer statement of the presence of the absence as social perception could be found than the following report of a conversation between Malcolm Muggeridge and Mother Teresa. When she was asked if she thought working with the poor was the way to find God, she replied: "Because we cannot see Christ [in the flesh], we cannot express

our love to him; but our neighbors we can always see, and we can do to them what, if we saw him, we would like to do to Christ…. In the slums, in the broken human body, in children, we see Christ, and we touch him."

III

In the Princeton University Chapel, designed by Ralph Adams Cram in the neo-gothic manner, the two "great" windows at the east and west ends of the building illustrate the contrast and correlation of what we've been calling the absence and the presence.

In the great cast window which dominates the chancel and choir area, the theme of sacrificial love receives copious and multicolored reflection with scenes from the Gospels. Central to the theme is a large horseshoe design of the Last Supper with Jesus and his disciples grouped around the table. It is, in a sense, the last recorded gathering of the historical Jesus before his death and resurrection. In the apex of the gothic arch, we see the familiar symbol of the cross and orb, otherwise known as the "Cross Triumphant." If triumphalism has a bad name with us these days, the emblem at the top of the window is meant to anticipate the world-wide influence of this historical Jesus, breaking bread and drinking wine with his disciples.

The great west window at the other end of the chapel bears the inscription: "I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly" (Jn. 16: 10). The Christ figure is in the upper center of the window, holding the book of life on which are inscribed the Alpha and the Omega. This is the "consummation" window, gathering together personages and scenes from other windows elsewhere in the chapel, and reminding viewers of the influence of the Christ upon the arts and sciences. This eschatological recapitulation looks both backward to biblical and Christian history and forward to the fulfillment of the divine promises. But in this west window, the Christ is not surrounded by his disciples in a historical scene, but by a similar horseshoe design of the Zodiac, suggesting that this is the cosmic Christ. And in the apex of the gothic arch, we have not a "triumphalist" emblem, but what is known as the "Triquetra," three intersecting abstract figures implying eternity and universality.

The Jesus who "vanished" reappears in glory as the Alpha and Omega. In the long interim between the times, it is as if we experience the absence of the presence. But if we hearken to the Spirit among us and within us, we also know what it means to experience the presence of the absence.