Hide and Seek

It seems like one of the games that kids have played across cultures and ages has been Hide and Seek. In a child’s mind, hiding is fun, and the level of amusement seems directly correlated with how difficult it is to find them, and is followed by some level of disappointment when they’re eventually found.

Yet the scenario drastically changes when this same child is lost in real life. Hiding ceases to be a game. They no longer want to be clever at hiding, they want to be clever at being seen! Their entire being seems geared towards only one thing; to be “found” by their parents… And when they are found, joy and peace supplants their agonizing fear and insecurity.

As adults, our intrinsic need to be “found” remains, yet we seem to find a certain level of “safety” in hiding.

Ever since Adam and Eve hid from God in the Garden, man has been hiding. Hiding from God, hiding from neighbor, hiding even from oneself. But this hiding is not a fun child-like Hide and Seek hiding, but a hiding that is closer to the fear and insecurity-filled sense of lostness of a lost child. Yet unlike a lost child, our entire being is not geared towards being found. We fear being found; being uncovered in our current state.

We don’t want God to be able to know the thoughts of our hearts that we so craftily try to hide from others.

We want to show only our best to those around us (and social media is really helpful in this regard).

And we try to convince ourselves that we are really pretty good after all.

Hiding from God, hiding from neighbor, hiding from self.

And yet like a lost child, we cannot avoid the deep-seated longing of our souls to be found. But being found requires a level of vulnerability that seems terrifying! “If they know who I really am, they won’t love me, they won’t accept me, I’ll not only be lost; I’ll be lost and lonely!” And so many of us have abandoned our longing to be found to avoid facing our own nakedness; a nakedness that goes so much deeper than our outer clothing… a nakedness of the soul.

Is there a solution to this existential dilemma of wanting to hide yet wanting to be found?

Let’s go back to the Garden for a moment. Most of you are familiar with the story. As soon as Adam and Eve sinned, and God called out for Adam, he answered, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself” (Gen. 3:10).

Even though Adam and Eve had formed clothes from fig leaves to cover their newly discovered nakedness, the fig trees couldn’t cover what they really wanted to cover; their sinful souls, and so they still felt the need to hide from God. Yet as Jonah would tell them from experience, you cannot hide from God!

And so God found them and after informing them of their well-deserved punishment, He makes them another set of clothes and clothes them Himself. But this time the clothes are not made of trees, but made at a cost of life; skins of animals to foreshadow God’s ultimate solution to human nakedness.

Years, decades, and centuries go by of humans continuing to hide, and God continuing to reveal Himself. Centuries of animal sacrifices to cover human sin, and animal skins to cover human nakedness. Yet the entire Old Testament seems to testify to man’s wickedness; indeed “every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5). Animal sacrifices did not solve the problem of human sin, and animal skins did not solve the problem of human nakedness.

Yet God had a plan since the very beginning that He graciously shared with Adam and Eve; for in His pronouncement of punishment to the serpent He said, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15). From Eve’s offspring would come a Savior who shall bruise the head of the serpent and break the power of sin and nakedness!

God kept His promise. We were hiding yet he was seeking. He humbled Himself and took on human form, walking our streets, healing our sick, and preaching a new kind of life through Him. He bore our nakedness and shame as he hung on the cross, so we would no longer seek cover from mere animal skins, but be covered by His very blood shed on the cross for us. We no longer need to hide from Christ but Christ has hidden us in Himself! As the Apostle Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, writes, “Your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3). We are called to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 13:14). How can we hide from Him any longer?! He has clothed us with Himself so that we can confidently draw near to the throne of grace (Hebrews 4:16).

My friends, may we confidently yet humbly approach God unlike the Pharisee clothed in his robes of external righteousness, but like the tax collector who stood far off externally, yet internally cried out that God would have mercy on him, a sinner; that God would cover his shame and clothe him with Christ. Indeed God did and Christ tells us that “this man went down to his house justified” (Luke 18:14).

My friends, let us be so united with Christ that we are lost in Him and found in Him. Perhaps this is what Christ meant by saying “whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:25). Only in Him can we be ourselves in all the uniqueness that He has created us to be. Only in Him are we hidden in Christ and so unashamed. Only in Him will we cease to hide out of fear yet enjoy the blessing of being vulnerably found and lavishly loved.

And when we enjoy His lavish love, we enjoy that kind of perfect love that casts out all fear. It is then that we can fulfill the greatest commandment to love the Lord our God from all our hearts, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.

The love of God finds us and cures us from our need to hide from God, from our neighbor, and from ourselves. Only in Christ can I be me and be loved! Only in Christ is our existential dilemma of wanting to hide yet wanting to be found resolved.