Always’ – A Theological Reflection by Rev. Dr. Robert Kolb

Always

Some scholars assert that “the presence of the Lord” is the major theme of the Old Testament.  Israel certainly did believe the Lord accompanied Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as their family became in days of triumph as a nation and in exile as well, even as he had displayed his presence in the wilderness, by day in the cloud, in the night by the pillar of fire.

But as the ultimate expression of his presence among his human creatures, our Creator, in his second person, took on human flesh and blood and dwelt among us, had a name like the rest of us—Jesus of Nazareth—rubbing elbows with common folks like you and me.  This song reminds us of his promise as he was about to ascend bodily to the right hand of his Father when he assured all his disciples that he will be with us always, even to the end of this age (Matt. 28:18).  He did speak those words as his body was soon to disappear into the clouds, beyond being touched and heard and seen as he had been for three decades.  The memories of his bodily presence among us that the church passes from one generation to another preserve our confidence that the Word did become flesh, but we do not have access to Jesus in the same way Mary and Elizabeth, John and Thomas did.  We cannot examine the holes in his hands and feet and his pierced side (John 20:27).  But the promise remains and assures us that both when we sense his nearness and when we have the impression that he has abandoned us, Jesus is Immanuel, God with us.

Jesus did also reinforce the promise of his presence with an important specific detail: he was sending his Holy Spirit as our “Paraclete”—the word means one who stands by us, who accompanies us (John 14:15-17).  The several translations we use of this word all convey some part of what the Holy Spirit does standing by us.  He comforts us, he helps and guides us, he stands with us before God the Father as our advocate, appealing to the death and resurrection of Christ and our baptismal promise as assurance that we belong to God’s family.

Jesus did not leave us on earth with his Holy Spirit simply to enjoy the blessings although that is certainly also true.  He has left work for us to do as we express and personify his love for all human beings and as we pronounce forgiveness and new life on those who have strayed from him.  The song “Always” expresses what he always is doing to support and uphold us as we carry out his mission of bringing forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation to others, his mission of support and comfort for those engaged in the battle against the Evil One and all his forces.

The promise “always” hangs in the air, not as a look backward to the history of Christ’s coming into our world to suffer, die, and rise again to place our sinful identities in his tomb and to restore us to living as a child of God, walking in his footsteps (Romans 4:25, 6:1-11).  That promise of his continuing, never-failing presence is the background and basis of what he discussed with his disciples in John 14;15-17: he has sent us his Holy Spirit so that we would know and remember that he continues to be with us and to impel us to take on the tasks of the life he rose to give us, a life we live with the Holy Spirit empowering us and upholding us, always, day in and weary day out.  For Jesus came to re-create us as children of God, and he was not about to leave us orphaned (John 14:18).

For the Holy Spirit came not to take us along for a vacation, for enjoying the easy life.  He sends us to those next door, those we encounter in the course of a normal day, and beyond that to the ends of the earth in the ways he makes possible in a digital age.  He fills our backpacks with the love, joy, peace, and hope that come along trusting that Jesus, who died to end our identities as those turned in upon ourselves and who rose to turn us outward toward those beside us and those far away.  He empowers us to share this love, joy, peace, and hope in the variety of circumstances in which both the victims and the perpetrators of sin find themselves.  

The song reminds us, if we need a reminder, that human life in a fallen world finds us in the midst of fire and flood, to begin the list of dire straits into which we and the people whose lives we can touch find ourselves.  For peace and hope are only possible on the basis of the promise that we belong to him and that nothing can separate us from the love of the Father because he has claimed us and we rest in him.  So, with the Holy Spirit at our side, supporting us, providing us with courage and confidence, with words and deeds of love, we find the lost, the hurt, the sick, the meek, the scared, and the broken.  We encounter them on the street, but the Holy Spirit takes us also into their homes, perhaps not literally, but in our conversations, we enter the inner chambers of their existence.  We may not feel at home there, but we know that Jesus and the Holy Spirit are also present there.  Because of their presence we can speak and touch in ways that demonstrate what it means for them that Christ died and rose to give them new life.

There is no moment of any day of our lives into which Jesus’s “always” does not stretch, no hour in which the Holy Spirit excuses himself and leaves us for a short time as orphans.  “Always” means “always,” and Jesus’s “always” gives us comfort and confidence day in and day out—always.

Most people who believe in a single Ultimate and Absolute that rules over all that exists believe that this Ultimate and Absolute is not only omnipotent but is also omnipresent.  He is hanging out at the top of Mount Everest and lurks in the deepest depths of the Pacific Ocean.  His presence there, however, does not do us much good.