Presence: a reminder.

I’ve written here about presence, particularly the presence of God.

Those post are part of a series I wrote when I was teaching a course on Pastoral Care. The idea that God is present with us is significant. Not fixing things, not doing what we want, but with us.

Right now, I’m teaching a class for beginning preachers and I’ve heard a few talks about some sentences in a letter Paul wrote to some people in Philippi.

In just a few lines, where Paul is talking about rejoicing and anxiety and prayer and things to reflect on, he talks about the presence of God twice. First, he says, “Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.”

Sometimes people interpret this in the context of Jesus is coming. But there is also the appropriateness of acknowledging that the Lord is present.

And then, a few lines later, Paul says, “And the God of peace will be with you.”

Paul was writing to people who were 30 or 40 years after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus. They could talk to people who had seen him. But Jesus was no more constantly visible to them than he is to us. Presence apparently isn’t the same as visible, touchable.

And in those 40 years, and for millennia since, people got sick, people died, people (including Paul) were locked up. So the presence of Jesus doesn’t represent the fixing of everything in my life, at least not according to my standards.

And yet, for Paul who had seen Jesus once, and Timothy who hadn’t, presence matters. It is worth mentioning, reminding, proclaiming.

And so I do.