Pentecost 13
John 7:25-36
Have you ever played the children’s game ‘Hide and Seek’? One of our
children, when very small, used to close his eyes and assume that if he couldn’t see anyone, then no one could see him. I have seen other children who could not stop laughing while hiding, or would give themselves away by the large bulge behind the window curtains. Good parents, when ‘it’, will pretend to look in several odd places, often bringing forth more revealing laughter, before finding the hiding child.
I never played hide and seek like that. I took hide and seek, from a very young age, to be a serious competitive sport. I was always last to be found, and often the seekers would be forced to give up. As I grew, my skills at hiding became more advanced. In year six I was old enough to attend church youth group activities. One of our first Friday night activities was hide and seek. I arrived at our large, three level church building with about 40 other eager youth aged 11-14. The game was explained and, apart from the person chosen to be the seeker, we were all sent out to hide. The trick was not to let anyone else see your hiding spot, because once a person was found, they joined the hunt.
I was determined to display my hiding abilities to this new group, so I made my way into the church kitchen when I was certain no one was looking. I climbed up onto the countertop from where I was able to lift a ceiling tile and pull myself up into the ceiling cavity. Once up, I carefully replaced the tile and made my way carefully across the metal beams until I came to the edge of the building. There I pulled a batt of insolation over me and waited. And waited. The groups coming through the kitchen grew larger as most of the youth were found. I grew hopeful as I was determined to be the last found. So I waited. And I waited.
Finally, I heard the voices of my parents and the youth leader calling out my name from somewhere in the large church building. I climbed out of my hiding place, back down through the ceiling tile and onto the counter, then out of the kitchen where I found my parents and a very worried youth leader. Everyone else had left more than half an hour ago. The night had ended and the group had finished with pizza and prayer. This was back in the day before anyone bothered to count children. So only when all the other youth had come out to the carpark did my parents came into the church and the youth leader realised that I had never been ‘found.’
I was told that I should have known the game was over and came out. He could not believe anyone would stay in hiding for over two hours. And, he wanted to know, just where I had been hiding? I said I was in a broom closet. There was no way I was going to give up a hiding place that good.
In today’s Goepel reading we find the Jewish authorities playing something akin to a deadly game of hide and seek with Jesus. They are looking for him to come to Jerusalem for the Festival of Booths so they can arrest him. But when he finally shows up, Jesus hides in plain sight. He openly teaches in the Temple. And the people begin to ask: Isn’t this the man the authorities are seeking? Why are they not arresting him? Anyone could find him. Perhaps they know he is the Messiah and are afraid. Others said, when the Messiah comes, will he do more miracles than this man is doing? Perhaps he is the Messiah.
The authorities tried to arrest Jesus but were unable. Perhaps because of the support of the crowd they couldn’t get near him. Finally, they sent in the Temple police to arrest Jesus. When they arrived Jesus told them that they time would come when they would seek him and not be able to find him.
They wondered what Jesus was talking about. Was he going to play a game of hide and seek with the authorities? Was he going to go into hiding among the Jewish diaspora who lived in Gentile lands?
But Jesus was not talking about going into hiding. He was pointing out that they claimed to be looking for him. And here he was. He was very near. But they could not find him. That is, they could not understand who he was. Jesus had just explained this the crowd, who thought they knew who he was because they knew he came from Galilee. He told them that they might know where he grew up, but they did not know the One who had sent him. Therefore, they really did not know him. They had not yet found him.
When Jesus challenged the Temple police and the authorities who sent them, he was not tipping them off that he was about to go into hiding. Jesus was well aware of their very public failed attempts to ‘find’ him.
When Jesus says the them, ‘you will seek me and not find me because you cannot go to where I am’ (verse 36) he was calling to mind a famous passage from the Prophet Isaiah 55:6”:
‘Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near.’
It was a verse that every devout Jew knew. It was a plea and a warning to not miss the opportunity to make peace with God when he is near.
And God would never be physically nearer to the people or the religious leaders than he was at that very moment. God in flesh stood right there in the Temple courts and taught the people. And, as Jesus had just pointed out, the people did not know him because they did not know the One who had sent him. They were seeking the Messiah. They were seeking God. But they had not found him.
But Jesus would not always be so immediately and physically present among them. There would soon come a time when the leaders of the peple would desperately seek him, not to arrest him, but to find his mercy. But Jesus would no longer be near to them. They had an opportunity unlike any Jewish religious leaders before them to seek and find God while he was near, while he walked among them. But they missed the opportunity. They failed to recognise him. The authorities only wanted to find him so they could arrest him.
But was Jesus seeking to allude the authorities? Was he hiding from them? If Jesus was playing a game of hide and seek with the authorities, he was doing a pretty poor job of hiding. That is because, unlike me as a youth, Jesus was not trying to remain hidden. Jesus wanted to be found. You might say he was playing reverse hide and seek with the authorities. He was teaching openly in the temple. He was performing the signs and miracles that the Hebrew scriptures said the Messiah would do. He said plainly that he was from above.
And the authorities continued looking for him, failing repeatedly in their attempts to ‘find’ him in order to arrest him.
Losing an adolescent at a church hide and seek event is embarrassing. Losing the chance to find God when he is teaching and healing in plain sight is an epic disaster.
That was the mistake of the Jewish religious leaders of Jesus’ time.
But what about us?
Are we heeding Jesus’ advice?
Have we heard the words of Isiah?
Are we seeking God while he may be found?
Are we calling out to him while he is near?
Do we see Jesus when he is right before us?
Are we seeking Jesus while he may be found?
Jesus may no longer be physically walking among us, but he is very near to us. He is calling us. And he wants to be found. He wants us to call out to him.
Let us not be like the religious leaders of Jesus’ time. Let us seek Jesus while he may be found and call upon his name while he is near.
Amen.
Pastor Mark Worthing.
Port Macquarie.