“Overflowing Absence”
John 15:26-27 – 16:4b-15
Allen Huff
Jonesborough Presbyterian Church
5/24/15
Before diving
into John 15, let’s remember a couple more ancient memories.
In the closing
verses of the book of Exodus, Moses completes the original tabernacle, and the Shekinah, the glory of the Lord, settles
upon the tabernacle as cloud and fire. In the very last verse of Exodus we read
that “38…the cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day, and
fire was in the cloud by night.” (Ex. 40:38)
Remember, the tabernacle
is a moveable feast. God’s dwelling is made to get packed up and hauled from
place to place like a family’s tent. This radical theological evolution
declares that Yahweh is no idol. The Holy One of Israel is not bound to one
place. Indeed, there is no place where Yahweh is not.
Many generations
later, King David wants to build a permanent home for Yahweh. But God says, Not now. I’m still working to establish your
house.
Several years after David dies, his
son Solomon orders the building of the first Jerusalem temple. Upon its
completion, the priests enter the sanctuary to consecrate themselves. When they
come out, the shekinah exhales upon
the new temple, and “…the priests could not stand to minister because of the
cloud; for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord.” (1 Kings
8:11)
In time,
things fall apart, as they always do. In 587BC,
the Babylonians seize Jerusalem and destroy the temple. Imagine the spiritual
turmoil. Yahweh who? laugh Israel’s
enemies. ‘Deliverer? King of the Universe?
Not any more.
Eventually, the
exile ends, as well. And when it does, Ezra, Nehemiah, and others build a second
temple in Jerusalem. The dedication is a happy enough affair, but Anglican
theologian N.T. Wright calls attention to the fact that the expected and coveted
Shekinah is conspicuously absent from
this dedication service.1 Wright suggests that the absence of this
critical presence may have helped give rise to Pharisaism.
By Jesus’ day, Pharisaism controls
Jewish faith and life. It has become a system of rigorous and ruthless piety,
but it is just a cover for the self-serving lust for a new demonstration of
God’s glory. True religion for the Pharisees means trying, by whatever means
necessary, to trigger the Shekinah of
God to shine.2 Such faithlessness, however, only results in widespread
amnesia of the shema – God’s foundational
command which renders all other laws redundant by pointing the way to genuine
holiness.
We find the shema in Deuteronomy 6:4-9. It begins with: “4Hear, O
Israel: The Lord
is our God, the Lord
alone. 5You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with
all your soul, and with all your might.” Adding Love of neighbor to this
command, Jesus declares that Love God and Love Neighbor are the hooks on which “hang
all the law and the prophets.” (Mt. 23:40)3
We begin to understand what the Shekinah of God is about, don’t we?
The fourth
Gospel is written no earlier than seventy years after Jesus’ ministry. John
writes for followers of Jesus who have begun to feel like that second temple –
an empty, God-forgotten shell, a community of faith with nothing in which to
have faith. Addressing the community’s anxiety head-on, John presents a Jesus
who says very bluntly: “I’m leaving now. You see me today, but tomorrow you
won’t. If you had listened to me, you’d have some idea of where I’m going. But
you haven’t really paid close attention. So you’re just sad and empty. And if
all you feel is empty, get used to living like a pack of Pharisees, living just
to make each other miserable.”
Betrayal.
Denial. Fear. And above all, self-righteousness. These are symptoms of
emptiness. Friday and Saturday are about emptiness. In John, however, Thursday
and Sunday bear witness to the advantage of Jesus’ absence. On Thursday, Jesus
tickles his disciples’ imaginations with that absence and the promise of a new
kind of presence. On Sunday it happens. On Sunday, the Shekinah returns, and the shema
is restored.
In John, Pentecost does not happen
forty days after Easter. In John, Pentecost happens on Easter. In John 20 we read: “19When it was evening
on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the
disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among
them and said, ‘Peace be with you...’22When he had said this, he
breathed on them and said…, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’”
By the power
of the Advocate, the mystery that is the Risen Christ transforms terrified, locked-room
emptiness into overflowing absence – that deep and wide space breathing with
holiness and promise.
I love and
appreciate our house in Jonesborough; but it often feels like excess for just
Marianne and me. When bothered by that, I remember that our home reflects the overflowing
absence in Marianne’s heart. “I want room for the kids to come home,” she says,
“and to bring families when they have them.” Our children’s absence does create
in us a kind of bittersweet joy, and we nurture both the memoried absence and
the hopeful joy.
Overflowing absence serves as a
testament to both remembered and expected presence. It is a promised presence,
and it drives us joyfully onward in faith, hope, and Love.
Two of our
young people are formally joining the church today. Elliott and Avery, I want
you to be aware that you are committing yourselves to a spiritual life in which
absence, doubt, and frustration remain as common as fullness, assurance, and
gladness.
When absence gathers itself around
you or in you, remember that the early church struggled with exactly the same feelings.
Remember that absence often becomes the realm of the richest experiences of
faith. Into the maw of apparent emptiness, Jesus breathes his peace, his
promise. He breathes his Love for you and for all creation. And in such overflowing
absences we tend to rely most completely on God.
Pentecost
declares that Spirit-mystery is always at work. We will never get our minds
around this mystery. The best we will ever get is our hearts open to it. As
Paul says over and over to the Easter/Pentecost community of the early church, We are the new temple. The Shekinah of God shines in the Love of
God, and Resurrection is even now breathing
this glorious Love through us deep into the world’s emptiness.
When we seek awareness of Mystery
in ourselves, we begin to see it in others, and in all of creation. The
presence of Pentecost Mystery holds the power to transform every absence into a
temple overflowing with the glory of God.
2Ibid.
3See also Mark 12:31, Luke 10:25ff., and John 31:34-35
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