Kretzmann, O.P.

English

Valparaiso University

Valparaiso UniversityValpoScholarO.P. Kretzmann Collection University Archives & Special CollectionsJanuary 2019The Abiding Presence, n.d.O.P. KretzmannFollow this and additional works at: https://scholar.valpo.edu/kretzmann_collectionPart of the Christianity CommonsThis Collection Record is brought to you for free and open access by the University Archives & Special Collections at ValpoScholar. It has beenaccepted for inclusion in O.P. Kretzmann Collection by an authorized administrator of ValpoScholar. For more information, please contact aValpoScholar staff member at scholar@valpo.edu.Recommended CitationKretzmann, O.P., "The Abiding Presence, n.d." (2019). O.P. Kretzmann Collection. 118.https://scholar.valpo.edu/kretzmann_collection/118• . . THE ABIDING PRESENCE J"ew stories in the entire Sacred Record are more dear to the Christian heart than the story of Emmaus. Here in a few sentences all the comfort and glory of Easter are applied- directly to the problems of life and living. Here we se~, clearly and finally, the meaning of the open tomb for our own journey toward the last sunset. The entire story is a striking parable of human life. It began in confusion and pain and ended in faith and joy. It began. in darkness and ended in ,the white light of the Sun of Righteousness. It began. in loneliness and ended in the magnificent truth that since Easter morning no believing heart need ever be alone again. The story itself is familiar to Christian memory. About this time, on the afternoon of the first Easter day many years ago, two of the sorrowing disciples, weary with the black memory of Good Friday were walking toward Emmaus. Their hearts were filled with sadness and fear. They were face to face with the end of everything they had hoped and belleved. Three days had come and gone since the news of His death aad reached them. Nothing more had happened. True, a few of the faithful women had been at the sepulchre that morning and had astonisb_ed them by reporting that the body was not in the grave. That, however, seemed to be only a wild rumor. As they walked and talked, our Lord joined them on the way. Their eyes, dark with sorrow and blinded with tears, did not recognize Him. He asked the r deeds reason fo their sadness. They told Him the story of the mighty words and The Abiding Presence - Page Z of Him Whom they had now lost, of His shameful death, of the ruin of all their hopes and dreams, and of the strange report of the women on that third morning. Their recital ended with the simple, sorrowing words: "But Hlm they saw not." . No matter what they had heard, they wattted to see Him. If only they could see Him once more 1 U only they could know that He was alive! Then all that had gone before would be as a momentary dream in the night, lost and forgotten in the light of His presence. And then the Stranger spok l "And beginning at Mo1es and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.~~ He reached far back into the dawn of time in order to ~how them why Good Friday and the Cross had to come. He spoke of Moses and David and Isaiah. He showed them how the prophets had foretold everything that had happened. This was no eudden and unexpected ev nt planned and executed by the powers of darkness. All I of it, every single step, was a part of the eternal councils of the Holy Trin.ity, conceived in eternity and executed in time: "Ought not ehrlst to have suffered theee things and to enter into His glory ?" Thi~ was the great divine "ought, " the eternal "must." All these thing ought to be, He told them, in order that through the glory of Bethlehem, the pain of Good Friday, an.d the victory of Easter the souls of men might be redeemed. But still they knew Him not I Only after He had gone in to tarry with them, the simple little act of breaking the bread and blessing it suddenly opened their eyes BO that they knew Him. ~erhaps their memory suddenly went back to the days when they had seen Him do this in Galilee and Judaea. "Their yes were opened and they knew Him." The grave wae really empty! Their Lord was alive I He had won the fhal victory over death. Now they knew that Easter had come .. They said to Him: "Abide with ue, for it is toward evening and the day la far " The Abiding Presence - Page 3 Many centuries before the still dawn of Easter Day a great cry, wrung f~om the heart of Job, began to echo across the waiting ages: ux know that my Redeemer llveth." Taken up and repeated by countless saints, in the years of life and the ho~rs of death, it became the great, eternal message of the open grave and the empty tomb. Early in the morning the women hurrying to the grave with the sorrow of death returned from the grave with the joy of life. The stunned s!lence of the disciples, torn between the warm faith of their hearts and the hard fact of the Cross, became the everlasting a~tiphon for the voice of Job. 111 know that . . my Redeemer liveth." All the ages could now sing it and all men could now know it. The stone rolled away had been made by the hand of God a witness to His eternal power and a monumen~ to Hie living Presence. The story of Emmaus has been repeated countless times since that first Easter evening. By the grace of God it can also be our story. Its courage and victory can come also to us who live so far down the ways of time. "Abicl with us for it is toward evening atld the day i8 !ar spent." One of the dark marks of our time is its uncertainly. Men at·e not sure of anything. ln faet, it has become fashionable to doubt. It is considered smart and sophisticated to be unsertain. The result has been ruin and death. In such an age nothing is more desperately important than the question; 1s there anything that is sure and permanent in life? The answer lies in our Easter faith. There is nothing vague or mysterious or indefinite about it. lts message is: Christ lives. He Uvea with us. He lives for us. A believing chUd can understand that. It is clear and sure. It ia a fact witnessed by history and certified by faith. Just how does He live with Ul? Although He ascended into heaven on the afternoon of Ascension Day, He dld n.ot leave the disciple• afraid and alone. Within The Abiding Presence .. Page 4 a few days they became a conquerlng host. Confounded and appalled by the tragedy of Oood Friday, huddled behind locked doors in hidden houses in Jerusalem, they became the indomitable bearers of the c ·ross, the men and women befote whom the Roman. Empire began to tremble. If they became living fagots, they knew they were torches o£ the Gospel. If they died, their faces at the moment of ' death were like Stephen's, the "face of an angel. 0 They lived "under the long looks of God and His glances of a thousand years.'' Why? Because He had ' answered their praye.r "Abide with us" with the great sentence which ends all loneliness and fear for the Christian heart: "Lo, lam with you alway, even unto the end of the world. 11 It is true that we cannot see Him with our eyes or touch Him with our hands. He has His own way of being with us in the world. lt is a great and a sure way. lt stretches beyond and above the noise of the world and the dark highways of men as the great, shining highway of the King of kings. This way lies in His word and His Sacraments. He comes to us through these . means of grace. ln. them and through them He enters our hearts. There is no other way by which we can live in. His abiding presence. No good works or seemingly holy life will brlng Him to us. At Emmaus the disciples remembered that He had opened the Holy Scriptures to them:""Did not our hearts burn within us, while he talked with ua by the way, and while he opened to us the Scriptures?" So He comes to us today through His Word, and our eyes are opened to Hit Presence by Hit grace. When he ascended from the earth ln. His glorified body to rule the centuries from the right hand of His Father ln. heaven, He left ue His llfe, Hi• death, His forgiveness in the page• of the Holy Scrip: uree and in. the . Sacraments. Through them the story of Emmautt was to be repeated again and again, every day and every hour of Chrlatlan. history. .By them the Comforter was to bring faith ·into our sorrowing hearts and companionship to our lonely The Abiding Presence - Page 5 lives. They were to bring us the bleseed aseurance of the forgiveness of sins, peace and sal vatibn. I Do not our hearts burn within us as we remember today how often we have neglected these means of His coming into our lives? On the way to Emmaus the eyes of the disciples were darkened by sorrow and fear. Somehow they had to be opened again to the glory and power of His abiding presence. Today when our hearts are so often shadowed by the darkness of hate and blood, by our countless fears over the future, by the storms of war, dare we neglect the only way in the world by which faith and courage and hope can come alive again in our eyes? This is the way to Emmaus--with Him. Even today it winds past the noiae and confusion of the world to the pulpit and altar of our Church and to the Bible in our homes. There our _Lord waits to answer all our question~ and end all our £ears. By the grace of God this can be our first lesso_n ,toda.y: Our risen Savior abides \ with us in His Word and Sacraments. When we use them faithfully, regularly, frequently, He draws near to us. Our eyes are opened and we see Him. Our faith beholds . Him as He was foretold by prophets, born in the manger, dying on the Cross, breaking the ._omb, so that He may now. abide with us forever, here by the means of grace, and there by the vision of glory. This i s most certainly true I Everything our Lord does is done £or us. We are the objects of His eternal love. When He comes to ua and abides with us He has certain definite purposes in His mind and heart. He wishes to give us something. His presence means something great and beautiful. The dtsclplea at Emmaus knew that. Their plea "Abide with us" was based on the statement "for it is toward evening and the day is far spent." lt wae growing dark. The Stranger Who had opened the Scriptures to them would be good company for the. coming night. As they had listened to Him, their hearts had burned with a new courage and a far hope. They wanted Him to etay with them because in His presence they had found a new understanding of the The Abiding Presence - Page 6 counsels of God and their meaning for history and life. This has always been the blessed experience of the believing heart. The . presence of the risen Savior changes everything in life. Absolutely everything I Forty days after Emmaus He was standing with His disciples on a hillside in OaUlee. His voice came to them like the rush of mighty waters which would tear . . them from their moorings and hurl them over the Roman Empire: "Go ye and . ' teach all nations." Because of the magnitude of this task He immediately added the words which repeat the shining story of Emmaus: uLo, lam with you alway, even unto the end of the world." Although a cloud was about to take Him away . from their sight, no cloud and no shadow would ever come between Him and the vlslon of their faith. · U happiness was to come to them, it would be the happiness reflected from the Ught of His presence; if honor, it was to be the honor of Calvary; 1f glory, it was to be the glory of His love. He would abide with them forever. This must be our prayer .afte.r theee many years. I£ we ask Him, He always stays. lived Countless men and women ha.veiiiWl and died in His Presence for almost two thousand years. lt is still the best way to live and to die. The entire Holy Scriptures · end with the moving worde "Come Lord Jesus." Whenever and wherever these I words are epoken in repentant faith, we hear His ·answeHng voice--old and lovely, healing and tender--"Yea, 1 come quickly." He crosses the threshold of our hearts .and life can never be the same again. ln the continuing mercy of His presence we can for .get the huge, invisible load of care and sin, the intolerable burden of the remembered years, 'and all the cares and sorrows which make life so dark for the m~n and women who walk the waye of the world without Him. This is what Hie abiding pre~ence can do for ua alao Today. As seldom before in the history of the world, men have lost their faith in man-made thlng1. Thev have found that education and aclt!!nce cannot aive the final ana~er to the . . The· Abiding Preaence .. Page 7 problems which trouble and perplex the soule of men. They are haunted by a feeling of failure and defeat. Also the Chrletlan heart is soinetlmee touched by this universal feeling of futility and despah·. When we look at our own Uv.,s, we find that we are seldom comple.tel'y happy. We are aware of our own weaknesses and defeats. We remember old sins and old troubles. We feel that the wortd I about us is rushing toward destruction. Our weary hearts cry out for the living God, for the calm peace and sure reat which can be found in Him alone. The .Eaeter message of the abiding presence of the risen Savior is the only possible solace and comfort for our iUs. lt tells us that we can now live with Him Who took all our troubles and sins up to Calvary and buried them in the forgiveness of God. It assures us that through the forgiveness of sins we can begin each day anew. As we. walk with His nail-torn hands in ours, life begins to move and live. · lt is no longer a dull routine. We live with Him. He knew its meaning and purpose. ' The world fl}ay say: tt}lappy i.s the man who is dch, who is powerful, who ls popular, who enjoys life, who can do what he wants to do." Our Savior tells us that the world is fearfully wrong. Across the tears and the graves of those who thought that the world was right He comes into our lives to tell us that with ~lm there is a new set of standards and an eternal value and importance in our brief journey between the cradle and the graqe. In His presence we cannot be afraid, _because He is not afraid; we cann6t be dismayed, because He is not dismayed; we cannot be conquered, becaase He will not be conquered. F acing all the storms and tears of life, there is always Someone by our side who knew them all and suffered them for our sake. This It the continuing power and glory of our Easter faith. As the shadows of Time lengthen and the hour of mah grows tate, we shall need this faith more than ever before. Much work remains to be done in the world so ~hat the message ' ' " The Abiding Presence - Page 8 of the risen Savior may be brought to new millions sitting in an ol d darkness • .Finally, only the men and women who live in the abiding Presence o£ the King of kings can bring peace and hope to the hurt and bewildered souls of men. Our Savior•s company can never be an excuse for idling and drifting through Ufe. While He gives us peace for our souls, He also gives ua work !or our hands . Since we live with Hi.rn, we have the blessed privilege of bringing Him to others who do not know the grace and power of His presence. Our days and years belong to Him and He akks us to ·ase them for Him untll the night comes . Just as the disciples at Emmaus hurried back to tell others that they had seen their Lord, so we a:re called to go out into the world of our friends , · our neighbors and our ' . enemie s a:nd tetl them of His everlasting grace and mercy. "Abide with us, for it is toward evening and the day is far spent. 11 Let this be our humble and heartfelt prayer as we again behold the glory of Easter and its meaning for us. Let it be for ua the assurance that i!n the Word and Sacramenta our Savior is here with us and will never leave us nor farsake ua . Let it be fo r us a challenge to work for Him and with Him while we wait' for the day when He shall come again to tt"anslate our faith in His abiding presence into the vision of Hil eternal victory. .. 

The Abiding Presence, n.d.

https://scholar.valpo.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1117&amp;context=kretzmann_collection

The Abiding Presence, n.d.

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