This is just a quick reflection on Deus Absconditus (“The hidden God”). This was the theme of Martin Luther’s theologia crucis (“theology of the cross”), and that is that God reveals Himself cloaked, as it were, in manifestations that for all apparent purposes are indeed, “hidden.” For example, He comes as a baby in a manger, He comes as a twelve year old boy, He comes as the ‘Son’ of a carpenter, and later as a bastard, He comes as a man who is ugly in appearance, finally He comes as a man who dies on a cross as a common criminal. These are all examples of how God is hidden, hidden that is to those without the eyes to see and the ears to hear. All expectations would never expect the God of the universe to show up the way He did; in fact the way He does. And that’s what I want to talk about now.
God still “shows up” today, He is the “in-breaking” God who constantly breaks into peoples lives by the Spirit. For all intents and purposes He shows up “hidden,” unless we have eyes to see and ears to hear we’re going to miss Him. You see He doesn’t work in the expected ways, He doesn’t work with our expected time-tables; in fact the way He works seem to be through rather ordinary and mundane ways, unexpected ways, hidden ways. For example, I would expect Him to just take my cancer away right now; I wouldn’t expect Him to show up in the “chemo” or in the doctor’s scalpel. I wouldn’t expect Him to allow me to goΒ through certain kinds of suffering and side-effects, sickness and tears; I would expect Him to move in on a “white-horse,” and pull me out of the pit. But this isn’t where the Lord is revealed — on a “white-horse,” at least yet — instead it is through the unexpected ways (like in the medicine, or the doctors, or the sickness, or the waiting). God’s glory is on full display in this world of suffering, pain, and despair; it’s just that we need to have eyes to see Him and ears to hear Him. Our expectations need to shift to the expectations of the cross; we need to be looking for God in the unexpected, He’s there on full display, in all His glory!
God’s Hiddeness is only hidden to those who have the wrong expectations of who God is. He isn’t a God who can be fitted into a pre-fabbed notion of “what” we think He should be; instead He is who He has revealed Himself to be, and thankfully that’s a God who is “Emmanuel,” God with us!!!
I’ve spent a lot of time contemplating Christ’s sheep and goats parable.
It is interesting to me that individuals in neither group immediately knew when they had (or had not) seen and served Him in this life and that the physical (clothing of the naked, feeding of the hungry etc) has specific spiritual parallels concerning what Christ has done for us.
Very sobering to note that if we recognize on any level what He has really done for us in wearing our sin so that we might be clothed in His righteousness, that He is the bread of life upon which we feed, that He is the source of living Water, that He came to free captives and heal the spiritually sick…. then it shouldn’t be a hard thing to share our stuff, time and/or prayer with the needy within our own ranks or even with our enemies, if the situation arises.
Sorry, got a little sidetracked, there.
Guess I picked up on the “hidden-ness” theme and it catapulted me back into another dimension.
Good post, though π
Thanks, Heather.