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Having the front shaft missing shouldn't cause any noise. It is probable that it was removed because there is a problem with the transfer case or differential, so that problem will need fixed first. Edit: 410Fortune states below that it may have just been removed because the drive shaft itself wore out and I agree, but I'm suspecting by the time someone went to remove it for that reason, they would be more likely to have put a new one on, more so than if it were transfer case or diff.
I know people have driven it that way without issues, but don't know about long term. Best guess is it shouldn't make the problem worse, may slow down the problem getting worse by not having the shaft on.
I recall reading that without the front shaft, there may be an issue where it creeps in park, that you should always use the parking/e-brake.
The forum code resizes images you attach that are above a certain resolution, so your pictures are barely (I had to copy into an image editing app and zoom them) readable, but I'm not sure if I could tell you which would work if I saw listings for the right part, don't know if there are any front drive shaft differences between 02-05 except probably the AWD vs 4WD are different? On that note, it would be good to
list which engine you have as 4.0L or 4.6L. The 4.0L is the V6 but I didn't think those came with AWD, only RWD or 4WD? I could be wrong but... I'd wait for someone else to post, to clear up this confusion!
However what I can make out on your pictures is most listings are for the axle shaft which is not the same part, axle shafts connect the front differential to both left and right wheel hubs and you can see on some listings that they detailed which side it came off of like "RH" for right hand or LH for left hand. As far as I can tell, on that site you need to search for Drive Shaft Front instead of Axle Shaft. See example pic below of listings I saw.
You can post higher res images on an image hosting site like imgur.com and link to them here, or put them in a PDF file and attach that to a post in this forum in order allow people to see the full resolution images.