Absence Makes the Heart Grow...

Passage: Lord’s Day 28; Matthew 26:17-30

When I was a kid my parents went on a two-week trip without my sisters and me. The three of us stayed at the houses of different friends. My younger sister was about two at the time, and when my parents returned to pick us up I remember her responding not with tears of joy but with what seemed near indifference. She was busy playing, and was more interested in finishing her game than she was getting in the car.

Very young children have the capacity to adapt emotionally to changes in care environments. Their attachments are formed on the basis of regular contact – they bond with whomever is consistently close by. And it’s remarkable how quickly this bonding process can take effect.
In truth, adults do the same thing in varying degrees. We are shaped most profoundly by those relationships and experiences that are part of our everyday existence. We are much more attached to and influenced by the people we see regularly than we are to those we see occasionally.

Because of this, when we must by necessity be separated from loved ones, we take intentional steps to maintain a meaningful level of intimacy with them. We establish means of communicating regularly. We send letters and pictures. We leave objects that serve as constant reminders – items of clothing; personal belongings; things that connect us to the missing loved ones. These objects keep us close. They instill in us the feelings evoked by the person, and remind us of our commitment to them.

Before an extended departure from them, Jesus gives his closest loved ones a means of staying close to him. Practices and objects that instill the feelings his presence evokes, and remind them of their commitment to him. If his friends didn’t already have a relationship with him, the practices and objects would be void of meaning. But because of their rich and intense fellowship, and because of their commitment, each thanksgiving meal is an encounter. It is as though, every time they eat the bread and drink the cup, he is there with them. He is in them; they in him. They neither forget him, nor who they are with him. Though they are apart, each celebration of the sacrament draws Jesus' friends closer and closer to him.