Grace to you and peace. (1 Thess 1)
Jesus speaks to you on this day from His Gospel heard, saying:
“So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid
himself and went out of the temple.”
The only other time in St. John’s gospel, that Jesus hides Himself is just before His Institution of His Supper. This is because there is will and purpose behind God’s desire to Hide Himself. It is not “hide and go seek” “leave it up to us” in these latter days will and purpose. As if to say: God did His work, now its up to us and we can do what we want because God’s not here to tell us yes or no. Jesus’s desire to hide Himself is so that He can reveal Himself in the proper way, that is on His cross.
In the opposite way, the way that leads to death, the world loves to hide things from you. Clarity, transparency, and responsibility are all words that key you into the lies. When you hear someone say them, they mean the opposite, especially if they have power and authority. There is no clarity as to what we are doing here, there is no transparency as to what they are doing to us, and no one is held responsible when things go wrong.
I have a long list of those things, but lest we get too far off topic, self-reflection is key here. Though we can blame systemic oppression, big government, or capitalism, to name a few, those entities we point to are mere reflections. They are us on a grander scale than we could ever get to on our own, yet we find in them our own sinfulness.
The sinfulness of wanting to hide behind scapegoats, of wanting everyone to see only certain, favorable things about us, and of wanting to get away with our actions, no matter who it may hurt. Because, you know, we were doing it for the greater good.
Hear the excuses of the Jews, in today’s Gospel. First, you are a Samaritan, they say to Jesus. This is an Ad Hominem attack. Ad hominem means you attack and dismiss a person according to who they are as opposed to addressing their argument. The argument they don’t want to face is Jesus telling the truth and them not believing.
They take one look at Jesus, who His parents were, where He was from, the color of His skin and categorically dismiss Him, with God’s Blessing, allegedly. For the Samaritans were the people of Israel that opposed the Temple in Jerusalem, claiming true worship of God in the northern part of Israel. Since they rejected the Temple, they rejected God.
Next, the Jews try to hide behind death, arguing with the fallacy called reductio ad absurdum, Latin for "reduction to absurdity". Death is the greater god for them here, as it would be absurd for people to rise from the dead. Jesus, if you keep talking like this, people are going to think that death is not the end. Your argument is invalid. Knock it off.
Repent. You love to use God as your excuse to hide your sins. From the beginning, God’s Word has been used against Him in such a manner. If you look hard enough and twist hard enough, you can make Scripture say whatever you want it to say and justify yourself by declaring, “God said so”. You can even side with the devil and call Jesus, satan, for what He does to you in this life.
The trouble does not lie with Big anything. You are the trouble and you need to be exposed. For either you are exposed by the Holy Spirit or you remain in your sin. And what does God use as His tool for exposing you? Is it a world wide broadcast interview? Is it a publicizing of private records for your embarassment? No. It is His Absolution.
Absolution meaning, “I forgive you all your sins, in the Name of Jesus.” Absolution meaning, for Christ’s sake, you have been adopted as a son of God and though you are disciplined, you stand to receive the full inheritance, at His side forever. Yes, your sins are as scarlet, filthy rags, but in Jesus you are white as snow.
Jesus did not wait for the thief on the cross to confess all his sins. Jesus did not wait for Lazarus to make up for every sin he forgot in life. Jesus did not wait around to become the king of demons, though they are angels so technically He is their king. No. He wastes no time in hiding Himself behind Absolution.
What does this accomplish? In the first place, when God is described as hiding His face, it is bad. As Job says, “Why do You hide Your face and consider me Your enemy?” (13:24)
He sees our sin and hides Himself from us and we can no longer find Him, if He doesn’t want to be found. We are left in our sin and suffering.
And yet, is this a bad thing, God hiding Himself? In another way the Bible speaks, the Lord tells us that if anyone sees His face, he will die (Ex 33:20). But why? Because unholy sin cannot stand in front of a holy God. “You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong” says Habakkuk 1:13.
Now that sounds like God will abandon us if we don’t shape up. But that is only without Jesus. Thus, because Jesus exists and did the work that He did, this “hiding” means something else. The picture clears up as we remember Psalm 51:9, “Hide Your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities.”
Why does God hide Himself? Not because we are not worthy, but because He does not want us dead. He does not want to destroy both body and soul and cast us into hell. He does not wish for the death of the sinner. God hides Himself, Jesus hides Himself in order that we live.
In Jesus, God hides His face no longer (Eze 39:29). All of God’s cards are on the table. The Jews today are trying to force Jesus to play His hand early. They want to bury Him beneath all those tomb-ish rocks before He can get to the cross. But that is not happening.
Jesus will go on the path He has made for Himself, the path of saving His people from their sins. This does include being stoned to death, as the ancient law requires, but it must be all stonings of all time, not just a one and done. The sacrifice Jesus makes, pays for all those punishments of stoning that the Law required in order to forgive.
And that is it. Jesus hides Himself, God Almighty hides Himself in Jesus in order to forgive sins, in order to redeem the thief on the cross, raise Lazarus from the dead, and absolve your sins. He hides Himself so that He may be found!
Imagine trying to find a spirit! God is spirit. The Holy Spirit flits this way and that, allegedly. Go find them. Where are they? Will they be there when you need them?
In Christ, God is located. In Christ, all the fullness of the godhead lives bodily. Seeing Christ is seeing the Father. Being in Christ’s presence is being in the presence of the Triune God. Hearing His Absolution pronounced upon you by words, is hearing and receiving forgiveness as if Christ our Lord spoke the words Himself.
Seek the Lord while He may be found! He hides in His Word and Sacrament. I was looking for Jesus, but He was in the Bread and Wine the whole time. How could I have known? Who would have thought of such a thing?! Who could imagine that when Jesus hides, He is found?
The Jews thought He was the king of demons, Jesus was so well hidden. But He was only hidden from unbelief, for even though God’s face was hidden from His people when He was angry, the faithful still sought Him and found Him, even when He was hidden, in His promised Messiah.
Now we have that Promise more fully received, in Body and Blood. What Abraham could not imagine as a proper sacrifice of a son, happens not in a ram caught, but a Son willingly crucified.
What we could not imagine as being powerful enough and relevant enough to rescue us from our suffering and death, has been set before us. Jesus has set His Table in the presence of His enemies and has redeemed them, poor miserable sinners.
It is to this Lord, then, this hidden Lord Who is found as easily as water is, that we trust in. This Lord Who’s hiddenness makes Him the least inconspicuous God in all of history. This God Who, for our good, even hides behind the title of “demon king” in order to defeat all and pronounce His absolution.
God does not hide Himself behind loopholes or turns of phrase or even the laws He Himself commanded. He takes full responsibility for them and though it is not He Who sinned, becomes the chief of sinners that He might procure Absolution from Eternity.
Who can understand his errors? We retain Private Confession in our church, in order to bring this Absolution to every individual suffering under the weight of sin. And Jesus delivers. The sin we find in ourselves reaches out to the world like a nuclear winter, covering all. That same sin we see hanging on the cross, with our Savior, being banished to hell forever.
He then gives us Word and Sacrament, Pastor and Absolution, in order that we find this hidden God in grace and forgiveness. This hidden, easy-to-find-God we wait on. For though He is hiding His face from our sins, we look eagerly for Him (Is 8:17), for He has promised to save, He has promised to forgive, He has promised show Himself.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Mt 5:8). On Easter, this is true because of Christ, but also every Sunday in His Supper, it is true for us. Jesus is the only pure-hearted and we are the only sinners baptized into union with that Jesus-of-the-pure-heart. So that we may see and believe. See His Sacraments and hear His Word, hold it sacred, gladly hear and learn it. Thus, we find Jesus after He has found us.
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