Gospel Commentary: Hide and Seek

By Fr. Paul Scalia
Herald Columnist
(From the issue of 4/22/04)

Only those who love can understand the game of "hide and seek." Parents and children play this game, as did romantic lovers in more innocent days. They understand how a loved one’s temporary absence increases the desire to see him, and how the heightened anticipation of finding him increases the joy when at last he is found. They play the game not to frustrate or anger each other but to cultivate a greater joy in seeing one another.

This simple game helps explain why our Risen Lord hides Himself from His disciples at certain times and shows Himself at others. At the Sea of Tiberias, for example, He stood on the shore and called out. "[B]ut the disciples did not realize it was Jesus" (Jn 21:4). They eventually recognized the Lord only because He "revealed Himself" (Jn 21:1). A similar thing happened when Mary Magdalene encountered Him at the tomb: before He made Himself known, "she thought it was the gardener" (Jn 20:15). So also the disciples on the road to Emmaus: until the breaking of the bread, "their eyes were prevented from recognizing him" (Lk 24:15). And even then He immediately "vanished from their sight" (Lk 24:31).

I hope it is not irreverent to characterize our Lord’s mysterious concealing and revealing of Himself as a divine form of hide and seek. He hides Himself not to frustrate or to avoid His disciples, but to entice them to search for Him. He conceals Himself to cultivate in their hearts the desire to see Him and the resolve to look for Him. He hides so that in loving Him they will seek Him and that in seeking Him they will love Him more.

This game of hide and seek is nothing new. We find it throughout Scripture. The psalmist cries out, "When can I go and see the face of God?" (Ps 42:3), and asks the Lord, "How long will you hide your face from me?" (Ps 13:2). Such passages confirm our own experience: sometimes it seems as though the Lord hides from us. Our prayer grows cold and routine, our petitions go (seemingly) unanswered, and our spiritual growth appears stunted. He is nowhere to be found. At those times we face the temptation to give up and stop looking. Abraham, King David and Job faced similar temptations, as did just about every saint in heaven.

At those moments, however, we should redouble our efforts. Precisely then, when we have no sense of our Lord’s presence, we proceed by faith more than anything else. And that increases our faith. This goes a long way to answer to the age-old question of why God hides Himself: He hides so that we will search, and grow in faith.

He entices us to search for Him also so that our love will grow. Love first inspires the search — because love of its very nature seeks the beloved. At the Sea of Tiberias, therefore, St. John, "the disciple whom Jesus loved" — that is, the Apostle most representative of love — recognized Him before anyone else. Then, having initiated the search, love itself increases as we desire to find Him. "The entire life of a good Christian is in fact an exercise of holy desire," says St. Augustine. "You do not yet see what you long for, but the very act of desiring prepares you, so that when He comes you may see and be utterly satisfied." If the Lord seems distant or hidden, it is so that our love will prompt the search and the search will increase our love.

The obscurity or hiddenness of the Lord should not discourage us. Rather, it should inflame our desire to see Him all the more. This is the way of faith and love. The greatest sadness comes not from the difficulty in finding the Lord, but from the refusal to seek Him at all.

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