“Are we there yet?”  “How much farther is it?”  I remember asking such questions as a child, when on a trip to a destination I was excited about (actually I sometimes still ask these questions).  The excitement and anticipation of a new experience, or even the repeat of an event experienced as enjoyable, drives us to expressions of impatience!  And I can still hear the response of my parents, grandparents, or whomever the question was directed…. “In a little while.”  “In a little while?”  What does that mean?  It seems quite arbitrary and seemingly a rote response intending to quash further questioning, and coming from at least a slightly irritated parent.

In anticipation of the Ascension event, in John’s Gospel today, (JN 16: 16-20) Jesus is telling the disciples precisely this.  In their confusion as to what he is saying, they seem not too pleased with what he is telling them.  Let’s listen in….

“Jesus said to his disciples: ‘A little while and you will no longer see me, and again a little while later and you will see me.’ So some of his disciples said to one another, ‘What does this mean that he is saying to us, ‘A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me,’…So they said, ‘What is this ‘little while’ of which he speaks? We do not know what he means.’

This sounds like a game of hide and seek.  Now you see me, later you won’t!  This is a bit confusing for them as they have been experiencing the resurrected Christ in person for some time now since the empty tomb experience of Easter Sunday.

What is a while?  In respect to time, it is at best a relative term.  In the cosmic calendar, the Big Bang is estimated to have occurred about 13.8 billion years ago, with earth’s formation happening roughly 4.5 billion years ago.  And humans didn’t appear on the scene until about 200,000 years ago.  From this universal perspective, we showed up on the planet just a short while ago.

For an eager child and an elderly adult, a moment can seem like an eternity.   The child waits with bated breath for the exciting newness that life brings in a steady stream of wondrous moments during those early years, while an older person may find each moment to be more of an anxious type of waiting game.  Both the child and the aged person are yearning for new life, with perhaps different perspectives, but in a way the same.

“Are you discussing with one another what I said, ‘A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me’?  Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices; you will grieve, but your grief will become joy.”

 We live in time and space.  We grow older each day and one day we will all experience death.  Whatever that means for the one dying, the experience of those who remain is that they cannot physically see that person anymore.  What if a little while is not so much a segment of time as it is a way of experiencing life – perhaps a type of contemplation, i.e., a way of seeing different than the usual way we look at things?  This would be a new way of leaning into life – a new perspective.

Instead of using ‘while’ as a duration of time, we also can use the word ‘while,’ as an experience of the present moment.  In Matthew, Jesus says “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them?”   This is a statement of reverence for the grace experienced in loving companionship.  But it does seem different, when things change – when loved ones die, when relationships change or seem to end.  There is a feeling of loss.  Our sight fails us, so to speak.

I wonder if this is what Jesus may be trying to tell the disciples.   Could he be inviting them, indeed challenging them, to a new way of seeing that crosses through grief and joy?   Could the experiences of our lives, good or bad, be a series of invitations to opt for a different perspective, a new way of seeing where we gain deeper in-sight into life and love in the companionship of each other, in the companionship of God!  Is this the Holy Spirit?

While we experience each moment, we are enticed into the possibility for transformation.  All the deaths of our lives can rise, ascend and be given back to us in the sacred companionship of another.  This another is how the Holy Spirit swoops into our lives and with the mighty wind from the Wings of Truth clears the confusing air of our perceptions and carries us inward and forward.   We can truly breathe in this Holy Spirit – this shared Holy Air that coaxes us into surrender in the most positive sense of the word!

Like the disciples, I don’t pretend to know what Jesus means in the Gospel today, but the discomfiture of it strangely offers hope and consolation to me.  My heart soars in knowing of- or perhaps believing in – the holy companionship we can experience while we journey in this life, and the transformed Great While that awaits us in each moment as well as in the mystery beyond.

Peace

Thomas

(originally published May 5, 2016)