Playing Hide and Seek

This season of Advent is a time of watching, waiting and preparing for promises to be fulfilled.  We watch as the horrors of war unfold in the Middle East and parts of Africa.  We watch closer to home with tragic shootings in California, Colorado and here in Rhode Island.  We watch and we wait for justice and peace in all of our institutions, governments, and systems both at home and abroad.  Watching, waiting and preparing takes many forms and occurs in all facets of life's experiences: individual, social, political, and theological. 

Much of the emphasis in Advent is on theological waiting and preparing.  We wait for the birth of the infant Jesus, the messiah or the second coming of Christ.  Our theological waiting, however, is incomplete if we do not continue to struggle for transformation, the change that is needed in all those areas in which justice is wanting.

There is a story told by Elie Wiesel about an ancient Hasidic master who was praying and studying in his small study when his young son burst in sobbing.  It seems the boy had been playing hide and seek.  He hid very well, and his playmate got tired of looking for him and went home.  The boy sobbed: "Its unfair.  He should have kept looking for me!"  The rabbi smiled gently and said: "Yes, it is unfair.  But now you know how God feels.  God hid himself very well, and people have given up looking for God.  God is sad too.  It is unfair!"

There are times in our lives when God does indeed seem to be hiding.  When a person experiences pain or sadness, sickness, or the death of a friend or relative; when people in our cities go hungry or become victims of violence; when people die from starvation; when a nation is torn asunder by war, or when thousands are killed by natural disasters. When these conditions happen it is easy to conclude that God is very well hidden.  Where is justice to be found?  How can healing occur in the midst of tragedy and travesty?  Where is God at the very time God is so needed? 

The history of men and women and God playing hide and seek is as old as creation.  Adam and Eve hid from God in the Garden of Eden; today, our hiding from God is as common as ever.  We hide in our consumerism, racism, sexism, parochialism, nationalism, and all the other isms we fabricate to separate person from person or group from group.  We hide from the hungry, the homeless, the elderly, the poor, the oppressed, and seemingly from all who are in need of something from us.  As we hide from them we hide from God.  How much easier it is to hide than it is to seek! 

Seeking and looking requires energy and action; it may be risky and costly, and one may even have to change direction from time to time.  Hiding, however, is a passive exercise, requiring only the acceptance of the status-quo, letting things be as they are, or perhaps letting things take their own course, or waiting for time to cure all ills, and not worrying about criticizing or challenging or changing much of anything.

The early Christians who believed in Jesus knew about the energy required for seeking justice and peace.  Their hope was based solely on the experience of God's gifts.  They were to watch, look, and be prepared to change, to turn in a new direction in order to receive the gift.

John the Baptist announced the impending gift: "Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”  Israel had been demoralized, exiled and in need of a word of reassurance.  To confront change is difficult unless there is a secure foundation and a firm center.  John the Baptist made a demand for repentance, thus preparing the way and making ready for the one who would come after him.  What this means for us is that we are to be in a constant state of watchfulness and readiness.

How are we to prepare and make ready?  What paths must we straighten, and what rough ways are in our lives that we need to make smooth?  What is your story about your search for God?  How are you preparing for Christ’s coming into your life bearing gifts of peace, love and hope?

As we speak of being ready for Christ's coming it is much more than being ready for the birth of a baby in a manger in Bethlehem.  It is a readiness for God to enter into the very context of our lives bringing the gift of God's new life -- the gift of peace, love, and justice.  That gift comes when we are ready to change the conditions in our communities and in our world that will no longer allow for violence, hatred, war, hunger, and poverty.

The Gospel was first proclaimed to a community of people who knew that Jesus had come, a community who believed in him.  Today we need more than an aggregate of individuals who believe in God and then continue to play hide and seek.  We need a convicted and broad-based multitude of believers and doers gathered together in faithfulness to the God of Jews, the God of Muslims, and the God of Christians -- it is the same God.  It is with that conviction and faithfulness that the rough ways can be made smooth so the gifts of life, love, peace, joy, and hope can enter your life and the lives and hearts of all people.  Amen.