With Awe and Reverence

Certain places have an almost palpable gravitas about them. I perceived it while standing at the chain link fence surrounding the crater of the Ground Zero in New York and at the memorial of the Oklahoma City Federal building. I have perceived at the Viet Nam War Memorial in Washington D.C. I suppose other people perceive it in different places: the memorial to the "Arizona" in Pearl Harbor or the cemeteries of Normandy beach, Auschwitz...

I suppose it comes on very strongly when pilgrims visit Jerusalem and Golgotha/Calvary, the site of Jesus' crucifixion. Perhaps those who first visited Jesus' tomb and saw its emptiness felt the same thing: a presence in the absence.

The same feeling of awe and reverence in the presence of absence ought to come those who approach the baptismal font and the communion altar. The same feeling ought to come over us as the preacher announces the Word that kills and makes alive. In these places, at these times, we stand in the presence of an absence. Looking at the font, the altar and the pulpit and we proclaim Christ's death and keep right on proclaiming it until the day he comes.