When God Hides - Mark 6: 45-52

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

The text is the Gospel lesson read a few moments ago.

I was watching some parents play with their baby the other day. They were doing what we did with our kids, so it caught my attention. In fact, I was rather wrapped up in the moment. Here were two perfectly intelligent, and judging by their clothes, professional adults, who – because of the presence of their infant – were reduced to babbling and baby-talk. He looked like he was used to cutting deals in board rooms and she looked like she was managing a power business of her own, but in that moment neither of them were worried about contracts or customers. And they were goofy. Their attention was 100% focused on their little child – they didn’t care about what I or anyone else was thinking. Speaking of goofy, I was smiling ear to ear, watching and remembering. But, then it happened: the mom took her baby’s hands in hers and, with a gentle motion raised the hands toward the child’s eyes while imitating a soprano Ed McMahon, “Wherrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre’s baby?” and then suddenly pulling the child’s eyes away from her face. The baby giggled with that contagious bubbling laughter that all babies have, I think. “Wherrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr’s baby?” Over and over they played. Baby giggled, mom laughed, dad beamed. And me? I smiled and remembered doing that with my own kids when they were little.

Peek-a-boo is a lot of fun when you’re playing with an intoxicatingly jovial infant. But when it seems as if God is playing peek-a-boo with you, it’s a whole ‘nother game, indeed.

“Pastor, I don’t understand. I keep praying and praying, but it seems like God isn’t listening. Or, if he’s listening, he’s not hearing what I’m saying. Is he hiding from me? Does he not care, anymore?” Those words were coming from a deeply troubled soul whose life had just been turned upside down. This person was seeking God. This individual was trying to pray but felt that the prayers were being unanswered, ignored, or simply laughed at. It seemed to be a fork in the road where only one path was a possible answer: either God doesn’t care, or he simply can’t help me.

Perhaps you are that soul, or you have been in that position before. Where are you, God? Why aren’t you answering me? Why do you seem so far away? You are in good company. Those cries of the faithful has been uttered, sobbed, screamed, whispered, and prayed into the silence by God’s people of all ages. Skim through the Psalms and you will see it over and over again – Psalm 5, 10, 39, 54, 61, 102 and 143 just to name a few – the cries of God’s children in need, in distress, in anguish, calling out to God for relief, but it seems as if He is hiding from them.

First, let us be clear: the Lord has promised to hear your prayers and He will always respond in His time in His way. Just because He isn’t responding WHEN you want, HOW you what, WHERE you want does not mean He is not listening, or He will not answer, or He doesn’t love you, or He has abandoned you. When God hides, when He is silent, He does so on purpose: He does not want to be found in that moment. Remember - God is in control of the hiding. Why would He do such a thing? God does this to do something to us. Don’t ever think God is sitting up in the heavens waiting for you to know Him or find Him by means of speculation or analogy or to crawl your way up to Him. No – not at all. God hides in the world. But, the purpose of that hiding is so that He can be found.

But He is found where you might not be seeking.

Where does one seek God? Oh, there are lots of places to look. Think of your average day. Where could God be hiding? The devil is quick to offer hiding places. After all, he wants you to try to find God naked, so to speak, unclothed from His Word and promises. To borrow from the old country song, the devil wants you to go looking for God in all the wrong places, looking for God in too many places. So, you start searching. But where do you search?

You pray for relief from the burden of debt. Could He be hiding in the lottery to take away all your financial worries? You pray for healing. Could He be hiding in a wonder drug that works wonders? You pray for your pain to stop. Could He be hiding in a bottle of booze or a package of pills? You pray for your family to be at peace. Could He be hiding in someone else’s home instead of yours? You pray for a miracle. Why isn’t he doing like he did then – walking around, healing the sick. The temptations multiply. Maybe we’re not praying hard enough. Maybe we’re not good enough. Maybe God is hiding in another church, another religion, maybe even another god? The temptation grows to go scurrying off after anything and everything that seems to have an answer. When this happens, we no longer even know who God is, we cannot recognize him – in fact, we hardly recognize ourselves as children of God. It is very much like the disciples – “This is a ghost!”

Luther said, “He uses our efforts as a mask under which He blesses us and dispenses His gifts so that there is a place for faith.” So God hides that we might believe His promise He is there and where He has promised to be. He hides from where we would seek him with our human wisdom and understanding. He hides beyond all speculation and guessing. He hides – deliberately - so He is not found in those places where idols dwell. He will not let Himself be found outside of His Word, His Sacraments, and His Promises for His people. In short, God hides from every place that is not grounded in and centered in the cross of His Son, Jesus Christ, who died and rose from the dead, who promised to send the Holy Spirit, His comforter, who enables us to believe and have life in His name.

When one of my girls was little, when we played hide and seek, she would always tell me where she was hiding. “Daddy – I’m going to hide over there. I bet you can’t find me.” You know how that worked out. God does the same thing: He tells us where He hides.

God both hides and reveals in the flesh and blood of His Son Jesus Christ.  In a place where the world would never think to look, God enters into this world and hides in a Nazarite woman’s womb, delivered as a Bethlehem Baby. He hides, in a way, where He was unexpected, under the sign of the opposite, in suffering, death, opposition to man’s reading of the law, being despised and scorned. His strength hidden in His humiliation; His authority cloaked beneath weakness; His glory unseen in His death; His throne a cross; His royal chambers a grave. There, in the plainly-seen flesh of His Son, the Father attacks all that would lead His children astray and in Christ’s death and resurrection, crushes the devil, the world, and our flesh that would mislead us and lure us into despair, shame and other vices. That is where God both hides and reveals Himself: in Jesus, the Christ, the only Son of God.

Finding Jesus is not hard. Yes, Jesus hides. Remember, earlier I said He hides to do something in you? Ironically, this hiding is so that you can receive Jesus, yourself. He hides in the office of the Holy Ministry and the pastors who serve in Christ’s stead. He hides in the Word that declares both the prophecy of Messiah and the fulfillment of the promises in Jesus. He hides in three handfuls of water spoken in the Triune name of God. He hides in the voice of a sinful man who forgives sins in the name of the Father and the Son the Holy Spirit. His very Body and Blood hides in a bite of bread and a sip of wine. He invites you to find Him where He is hiding. “Take and eat; take and drink.” It’s as if He says to you, “Here I am – hiding right here!

And, He comes to you, not when you are strong, but when you are weak and broken, when you are anxious and depressed, when you know you have sinned against God and man, and when your cheeks are wet with tears and your heart aching, when you feel you cannot search another single place. He doesn’t cast you into the darkness. Instead He comes to you. Hidden in these means, He comes to you as your Lord and your Savior and He says simply, “Take heart. It is I. Do not be afraid.”