Rejoicing in His Absence
Remember Cold Mountain, North Carolina, from the book or movie?
Inman travels towards it, coming home from the Civil War,
as we anticipate his return to his true love, Ada.
It was also the backdrop for a sunset I once
saw near Hendersonville.
Just before the sun dropped, nearly three dozen people arrived.
Couples with children. Couples without children. Middle-
aged people.
And people in their eighties who had dressed up for
the occasion.
We all stood or sat on rocks in the gathering
twilight, taking in the show,
the blues and purples and pinks,
talking and anticipating the
grand finale.
Suddenly the sun came out from behind a long cloud, fiery orange;
It lit up everyone’s faces as we looked back at the purple
mountains’ majesty.
A mother told her daughter, “It’s almost gone.”
Two lovers broke off their amorous attentions.
And several kids repeated, “It’s going!”
“There’s not much left!” “There it goes!”
And then—it was gone.
And there was an instant of silence.
And then—applause!
Three dozen people on Jump-Off Rock gave
their hearty review of the sun
at the curtain call of that day’s
performance, along with those in
supporting roles
—the clouds, Cold Mountain and all
its neighbors, the Pisgah Forest,
the purples, blues, reds, pinks and
oranges—
And, to my way of thinking, to the Director of the whole show.
Unlike sunset watchers, the early disciples didn’t know when the return would be.
And yet, they rejoiced.
They gazed.
They worshipped.
Maybe they even applauded, if people
did that back then.
And then they returned.
And they waited for the gift that would make them witnesses to all the world,
And proclaim good news when the news is bad,
trust light when it’s dark,
and—even, although it’s increasingly harder,
when convinced that we have it all,
or deserve it all now—we,
too, even now wait:
For a savior to be in our midst,
for the kingdom to come,
for our troubles to be healed by someone,
because God knows we can’t seem to solve
them all ourselves,
including all the troubles of the world
which mirror our own:
For racism to be healed;
for ethnic and religious warfare to be healed;
for ageism and sexism and homophobia to be healed;
for the dead we have loved to be raised.
All the evidence suggests that that savior packed up and left a long time ago.
And yet, on this day we celebrate his absence!
On this day we take a leap, because from that point on,
he was going to have to be present in a new way,
if he was to be present at all.
Maybe the absence of God is underrated.
Like silence, if we can get someplace without the noise and
clamor,
we appreciate more the sounds that matter that we
suddenly hear.
Like the absence of someone who cares about you,
it becomes clearer than ever how important
that person was to you in the first place.
And so it is that in his absence, the Spirit of God will still catch you,
and somehow, by some power completely outside yourself,
you will, like those first disciples, no longer look up
to the sky,
but at those around you, and you will minister
to each other
and to the world the way he ministered to them,
showing them forgiveness,
and challenging them to go beyond
what they
thought was possible
in terms of who could be called
a child of God,
precious in God’s sight.
And what a beautiful sight that will be!
Scott L. Barton
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