Christmas 2024

A little child playing with its father is both amusing and endearing.  The father has all the skill and foresight whereas the child has all of the thrill and excitement.  Take for example a father playing hide-and-seek with his daughter.  When she hides herself, he immediately knows where she is.  Her snickers and giggles betray her location.  He can easily see her pink slippers sticking out from behind the couch.  And yet the father knows his role.  For a while he acts as if he doesn’t know where she is.  After a few minutes he surprises his daughter as she laughs with delight.  Next, it’s his turn to hide and her turn to seek.  He hides himself a little too well, and her annoyance rises as she searches without success.  The mother gets involved and helps the little girl.  The mother leads her by the hand into the living room where she pulls back the curtain to reveal the father hiding.  The little girl is once again surprised and thrilled with delight.  Mother and Father have all the skill, the daughter has all the excitement.

The game of hide-and-seek has been around for most of human history.  Records of it exist in ancient Greece and it has likewise been played since time immemorial among Koreans, Nigerians, and South American tribesmen.  Such universality suggests to me that the game of hide and seek is hiding something about humanity in plain sight.  I propose that we can find the origin of hide-and-seek in the third chapter of the Bible.

Immediately after the fall of man, Adam and Eve had that horrible sickening feeling which all of us have experienced in those awful moments of our lives.  We realize we’ve done something terrible.  The damage is done and there’s nothing we can do about it.  Well, nothing except one thing: hide.  So, Adam and Eve played the first game of hide-and-seek.  And it was every bit as ridiculous though not as delightful as the little girl thinking her father could miss her behind the couch, because of course the all-knowing God could easily see through the few bits of shrubbery in which Adam and Eve hid.  But interestingly, critically, God didn’t just blaze in upon them.  He searched for them.  Why?  Why did God choose to play their pointless and silly little game?  Perhaps if man saw God searching for him he might then begin to search for God.  And so he did.  And the game of hide-and-seek between God and humanity began.

For centuries, generation after generation looked for God.  But the sad searching was no child’s trip through the living room and the broom closet.  No, poor mankind sought their hidden God in one false god after the other.  But He was not in any of those idols.  Where could He be?  And then, finally, God had mercy on his poor child and called out to him, “try looking over here!” First to the patriarchs like Noah and Abraham, and then, most dramatically to His children in Egypt through Moses, God called mankind to come find him.  He showed Himself in the plagues inflicted upon Egypt.  He showed Himself as He parted the Red Sea.  He showed Himself in a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day.  But even after all of the miracles seen and the special laws and covenants established, Israel was not satisfied.  Eventually they turned away.  Their hearts are restless and the search begins again.  Perhaps He is in this or that false god.  Yes, they want to find God, but just as soon as they get close they get cold feet.  Perhaps, they think, God is not worth finding after all.  I would say they were fools, but does that sound so different than us?  So finally, after centuries of this cycle of hide-and-seek repeating itself again and again, God uses a new tactic.

This time instead of loud and colorful miracles, He chooses to hide Himself in the most unassuming and modest of places.  He hides Himself as an infant as He is born on that cold, silent night in the little town of Bethlehem.  And if that isn’t obscure enough, He is born in cave repurposed as a stable and placed in a feeding trough.  There are hints of His whereabouts as a new star hangs above the city and angels are witnessed singing in the countryside sky.  Both shepherds and kings travel to find Him.  “Where is he who has been born King of the Jews?”  the magi ask.  “Surely He wouldn’t been born in such shabby place.  The one for whom their hearts are restless would choose to hide Himself in the most humble and unlikely of locations?  He wouldn’t hide Himself in a place like that!”  And then the door opens to the stable, and a woman stands there with a finger pressed to her lips.  Mary, our mother, has come to help them in the search as any good mother would.  “Yes, He’s in here.  But come in quietly.  He is asleep.  The God who cannot be contained is held in a manger, over there.  The God who never sleeps and always watches over Israel is here, asleep as a baby.  Come and see Him.”

What God was doing on that beautiful Christmas night was changing the rules of the game.  Adam and Eve had tried to hide from Him, and they did such a good job of it that they couldn’t find Him again when they looked.  So, like a good father, the Lord Jesus decided that from now on He would hide in plain sight so that his children wouldn’t have to go so very far to find him.  Just as the great tragedy of the Fall was the poorly hidden man, the great delight of Christmas is the poorly hidden God.  He was tucked away in a manger, yes, but with cheerful angels singing out hints in the highest as to where He was.

And yet so much of humanity still misses Him.  The shepherds and magi were privileged to find Him.  But much of Israel missed Him and so they kept searching, kept seeking.  Even after He completed His mission of dying, rising, and ascending to Heaven, many missed Him.  And so, the search would continue.  And perhaps those poor people who don’t find God now are missing Him because they don’t want to find Him right under their noses.  They still want to find Him in a burning bush on a distant mountain or in some secret group which claims to have all the hidden answers.  They want to find Him in the beauty of nature and the silence of the woods.  They miss Him because they don’t want to find Him the way a child happily finds its father behind the drapes.  You see, the reason the happy child can find its father–with a little help–is because he knows Father can’t have gone far, and that at any moment he’ll pop up again.  Without that trust, the child would be agitated and perhaps give up the search.  We do that sometimes.  All of us are searching for God and we grow weary of this game of hide-and-seek.  But the truth is, God is quite close.

In the Church, our Lord chose another ill-concealed hiding place.  The new manger in which He lies is every tabernacle, every ciborium holding His precious body and blood.  Like so many that missed Him at His birth in Bethlehem, so many of us miss His new hiding place.  He chooses the most humble and unlikely of places: the appearance of bread and wine.  We seek rest and leisure in our hobbies and sports.  We seek satisfaction on our phones or on our dinner plates.  We seek happiness in our various vices and addictions.  We seek God in a thousand different idols.  But our hearts are restless until they rest in Him.  The one who can calm our restlessness and give us abiding happiness is found in the Eucharist.  And like a good mother who helps her children in a game of hide-and-seek, the Church gently beckons us to the Mass and the Eucharist where our Lord once again descends to earth.  Our Mother the Church says “Yes, He’s here.  The one who came as a baby so long ago.  He is truly here.  As the angels sang in the heavens announcing His birth, our bells ring out announcing His birth again in the Eucharist.  As the magi offered Him gifts, we offer Him our gifts of praise and worship.  The one who can satisfy every desire in your heart, He resides in that tabernacle, that new manger, waiting for you.  He is here.  Come worship Him.  Come receive Him.”