Sermon - 5-22-22

<p>As I think back to when my kids were little, I remember times when I would leave them with a babysitter so I could attend an event.  I remember that, at some point in their development over those early years, each one of my kids experienced a form of separation anxiety.  They would cry big crocodile tears as I would leave, and I in turn would feel terrible that I <strong>was</strong> leaving them.  The truth of the matter is they stopped crying shortly after I left, and they were happy and content the rest of the time I was gone.  I am sure most of you who are parents have had this same experience with your children.  Separation anxiety is a normal part of development.  Sigmund Freud once said such “anxiety in children is originally nothing other than the expression of the fact they are feeling the loss of the person they love.”  I am also sure that most of <strong>you</strong> have some memory of what it was like to be the one who is <strong>left,</strong> and you probably have felt the anxiety that accompanies such an experience.  Some may remember feeling some form of separation anxiety when you were left to face your first day of school.  Some of you may have felt anxiety when you found yourself left alone at the end of a broken relationship.  And many of you know the grief and anxiety of being left when faced with the loss of a loved one.  It is quite likely all of us understand what it feels like to be left alone and the anxiety we feel when we face an uncertain present and future. </p> <p>In today’s gospel reading, we find the disciples facing a serious, severe form of separation anxiety. It is the last evening of Jesus’ life as he spends it with his disciples before his betrayal, before he is handed over to those who hate him, those who will take him away to be executed.  Jesus knows he is going to die, and he has been communicating this to his confused disciples.  I imagine they are quite bewildered as they struggle to understand what Jesus is saying. Their whole life over the last three years had bee