Hide and Seek

Because my childhood was not a particularly happy one, I have not kept many memories of it. So it was something of a surprise when, just the other day, as I was reading and meditating on Genesis 3, one memory came flooding back to me, quite unbidden.

I was five or six years old — no more; and I had been taken to the birthday party of a girl called Carol who lived a few doors away. I was a very shy and solitary child and I remember not wanting to be at the party at all. Hating all the noise. Hating being blindfolded and having to try to pin the tail on the donkey. Hating pass-the-parcel — even now, I can see, in my mind’s eye, the brown paper and the string. Hating musical chairs. But liking, and being grateful for, the escape offered by the (new to me) game of hide-and-seek! I remember Carol’s dad closing his eyes and starting to count to 50 as all we children ran off to hide. And I remember climbing upstairs, going to the airing cupboard on the landing, and shutting myself in the darkness and warmth, next to the copper cylinder among all the towels and sheets and blankets.

There the memory ends, I’m afraid. I don’t know whether I was found, or whether I just came out when the game was over. But it doesn’t matter. As soon as that memory flooded back to me, I began to hear the Spirit breathing the words ‘Hide and seek.’ And I suddenly saw that that is what the whole history of mankind has been about. It is what it is still about. And, more to the point, it is what your history and my history is all about. A game — albeit a very serious game – of hide and seek in which the players are ourselves and God.

Now, at this point, I don’t think anyone who believes in God will want to quarrel with me. Most people who belong to the Christian church or to some other religion will, I think, agree that it is perhaps helpful to see life in that way. But I think I will part company with everyone outside of Christianity with what I am about to say next — and probably with a good many inside of Christianity too. For what I want to suggest now is that, in the cosmic game of hide and seek that has been going on since the world began, the world has nearly always misunderstood its role. It has nearly always taken the view that God is the one who hides and that man is the one who seeks. Listen to the way people speak ...

‘My search for God started soon after I moved to Liverpool ...’

‘I knew I could never find God in organised religion ...’

‘The hunt was on. I began to look for God in the most unlikely places ...’

Do you see? In the popular way of looking at things, even in the minds of many Christians, God is thought to be the hidden one while man is the intrepid seeker, battling his way towards the truth. But C S Lewis (who can usually be relied upon to expose an absurdity whenever he comes across one) says that those who talk of man’s search for God might just as well talk about ‘the mouse’s search for the cat.’ The truth is the complete opposite. And, as evidence that that is so, Lewis, the Oxford don, describes the start of his own conversion:

You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms. The Prodigal Son at least walked home on his own feet. But who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance to escape? (Surprised by Joy, Chapter 14.)

Do you see? Man hides — maybe not always with the determination of Lewis — but he hides. God seeks. Always has, always does, always will. That is what the parable of the lost sheep is all about. That is what the parable of the lost coin is all about. And that is what Genesis 3.1-15 is all about — the temptation and fall of Adam and Eve.

The serpent comes to Eve and persuades her to eat the forbidden fruit. She gives some to Adam and their eyes are opened. Then they hear the sound of

Genesis 3.1-15. NIV Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God really say, “You must not eat from any tree in the garden”?’ The woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, “You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.”’ ‘You will not surely die,’ the serpent said to the woman. ‘For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, ‘Where are you?’ He answered, ‘I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.’ And he said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?’ The man said, ‘The woman you put here with me — she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.’ Then the LORD God said to the woman, ‘What is this you have done?’ The woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate.’ So the LORD God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this, Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.’

God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and they experience a feeling that is completely new to them — the feeling of guilt. And what do they do? They hide themselves. They hide from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

Did God know what they had done? Of course he did. But did he pick up his robe and recoil with horror, and disappear over the cosmic horizon vowing to have nothing more to do with these scummy little vermin he’s created? No. This is surely the point. Mark it well. He turns up for his evening walk with them as usual.

It is not that what they have done does not matter. It matters so much that, thousands of years down the line, it is going to cost the life of His own Son to put it right. But God’s relationship with the human beings He has created is so precious, so important, so vital to Him that He will not allow anything that they have done to put an end to it. They might hide from Him, but He will not hide from them. So He calls out to them: ‘Where are you?’

It was not that He didn’t know where they were, of course. As He asked the question he could see them — over there, cowering behind the azalea bush just to the left of the big copper beech, crudely clothed in the garments of fig-leaves they had made for themselves, fingers to their lips going ‘Shhh ...’ to each other. But He still asks, ‘Where are you?’ because they have hidden themselves and He wants to draw them out of hiding and back into relationship with Himself. And, good for Adam, he comes out from behind the bush, Eve with him, and answers the Almighty.

Then God says, ‘What have you done?’ Again, He asks the question not because he does not already know the answer but because He wants them to tell him the answer and to tell it openly and honestly. That has to be the basis of God’s relationship with man — God wants to hear the truth. And, again, good for Adam, he tells it. So does Eve. And what is the result? Well, God utters a curse. He declares a great and terrible woe. But it is not a curse on the man or the woman, as we might expect. No, it is a curse on the serpent. God has already blessed the man and woman (Genesis 1.28) and that blessing continues. And if read on beyond Genesis 3.15, we find that ‘the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.’ God not only draws them back into relationship with Himself; but He casts aside the covering they have made for themselves – that pathetic, wilting, falling-to-bits-already, covering. And, out of His love and goodness and mercy and grace, He provides a covering for them that will endure. What a foreshadowing of all that was to come in Christ — especially when we note that God covered them not with garments made of leaves but with garments made of skin. Something had had to die for them — just as someone would have to die for us.

It has often been said that the whole of the Gospel can be found in the book of Genesis, and it is true. But the bit of the gospel that God laid on my heart the other morning as I read Genesis 3 was this. That whatever I or anyone else has been taught, sin does not separate God from us. Sin does not cause God to move away from us until such time as we have achieved a sufficient degree of penitence for the relationship to be resumed. No — if we let it, sin will separate us from God by heaping guilt and condemnation upon us and causing us to run and hide out of a misplaced sense of fear. But the fact is that, when sin comes in, God still turns up looking for fellowship and friendship with us. It is we who run and hide. Generations of wrong teaching might try to tell us otherwise, but it is not so. And it matters. It really matters. Getting it the right way round is not a matter of theological nicety — it is a matter of spiritual life and death.

Consider this. If what I am saying is wrong and if sin does separate God from us — drives Him away and causes Him to go into hiding, how are we going to get back into relationship with Him? Just how are we going to rejoin ourselves to the Source of all life? Big problem. There is only one way, isn’t there? Its got to be by the most supreme effort we have ever made, hasn’t it. We are going to have to show penitence like we have never shown it in our lives. We are going to have to pray and pray and pray. Preferably on bare knees. Preferably on a cold stone floor. Preferably in a hair shirt. Preferably while fasting. We are going to have to show God how much we want to be back with Him by showing him how much we hate the world and all it has to offer. We’re going to have to be poor by choice, chaste by choice, obedient to the enth degree. And we are going to have to abound in good works and acts of charity. Then, perhaps — and it’s only perhaps — God might grudgingly allow us to crawl into His kingdom, so long as we sit in the corner and keep our heads down.

Do we believe that? No, of course not. When it is painted in those sort of colours we see what a nonsense it is. If God has hidden Himself from us, the task of renewing our relationship falls entirely upon us. Yet if God has washed His hands of us and gone off to sulk somewhere beyond Alpha Centauri, the task is an impossible one. There is nothing we can do to bring God back. Nothing at all. It would be ridiculous to think otherwise.

But on the other hand I am not sure we fully appreciate what the opposite means. I do not think we fully grasp the implications of God being a God Who seeks us out even when we hide from Him. God being a God Who will not give up on His relationship with us. God being a God Who will call us out from the bushes and keep on calling until we come. God being a God Who will stoop to make garments for us and cloth our nakedness. It is all there in John 3, isn’t it?

Have we truly grasped it? God loved, God gave, God sent. God takes the initiative. God comes to us. God does everything — and I do mean everything — necessary to restore the relationship. All we have to do every

John 3.16-18. NIV For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.

day from here to eternity is to say ‘Yes.’ It really is that simple. But, and this is our problem, we really do find it far too simple to believe, far too good to be true. Someone has even called this approach which maintains that God asks nothing from us but acceptance, ‘cheap grace.’ But it is not cheap grace. On the contrary, it is the costliest grace in the universe. It cost the life-blood of God’s own Son. Grace is only cheap if we insist on putting some price on it that we can pay — proper repentance, diligent observance of the Christian disciplines of prayer and Bible study and worship, sound financial stewardship, good behaviour and every other performance-based offering.

Suppose the queen says: ‘Neil, I’ve decided to give you the crown jewels.’

‘Well, your majesty, that’s wonderful. I mean ... Wow, I don’t know what to say ... But, look here, I can’t just take them like that. I mean, let me pay for them. Let me see, what have I got? Here, will 80p be OK?’

See what I mean? I have made what is without price worth 80p by my insistence on paying for it. I have cheapened the grace. And so with the grace of God. All He asks of us is that we accept a restored relationship with Himself. And He makes it plain that the price for that restored relationship has been paid for, down to the last penny, on the cross of Calvary in the blood of Jesus. So to offer anything to God in exchange for that relationship, to do anything in the belief that it can influence God in some way, increase His goodwill towards us, make our relationship with Him that little bit more secure, cause Him love us more than He already does, is just to ... well, to heap insults on the Cross and the One who died on it.

Paul says, ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself.’ He does not say that God was reconciling himself to the world. We are always the ones who need to be turned back, not God. He has never ever turned away. We are the ones who need to be swung round and caught up into the Father’s arms. And that we allow Him to do that to us is all that He ever asks of us.

The cross removed the sin that was keeping us from God. The sin never kept God from us. ‘While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us,’ says Paul. And, when Jesus died on the cross, Paul says ‘God forgave us all our sins.’ Now we need to think about that for a moment. We need to ask ourselves, ‘Just how up-front was this up-front forgiveness?’ How far into our lives does it extend before we are placed on the get-forgiven-as-you-go sort of basis that much churches seem to believe we are on? Did we get up-front forgiveness to the point of our conversion? Or up to the point of our baptism ... or what? Assuming that I am forgiven now, where do I stand as regards the sins of the rest of today, tomorrow, next week, next year, the rest of my life? Go back to the text. He forgave — completed past action — ALL our sins. All means all. Past, present and future. We have up-front forgiveness of the lot. We simply need to appropriate it, receive it, take it. That is why nothing can separate us from the love of God (Romans 8.39). Isn’t this good news? I think it is.

The truth about mankind is that God seeks; we hide. We hide because we do not fully believe the good news. We hide because deep down inside we are scared of God. He is not mad at us. He never has been and He never will be; but we think He is. And we cannot really believe that we do not need to do anything to please Him, to put Him back in a good mood, to cool His anger, to ‘turn away His wrath.’ But we do not, we really do not.

Saint Augustine did plenty of hiding but in the end God brought him to

Confessions, Book X, Chapter 27. Late have I loved you, fairness so ancient and so new; late have I loved you! ... For you were with me but I was not with you. You called and cried aloud, and forced open my deafness. You sent forth your beams and shone, and chased away my blindness. You breathed fragrance, and I drew in my breath and now do sigh after you. I tasted and now do hunger and thirst after you. You touched me, and I burn for your peace.

himself. Read alongside what he wrote to his Lord.

Like CS Lewis, like St Augustine, like Francis Thompson, we flee God ‘down the nights and down the days,’ we flee him ‘down the arches of the years.’ But, thanks be to Him, ‘the strong Feet ... follow, follow after.’ They follow after me, they follow after you; and the Hound of Heaven will not abandon the chase until we capitulate, until we give in, and come to the Father — every last bit of us. Until we come with empty hands, and allow Him to fall upon our knecks and kiss us, until we allow Him to bring the best robe and put it on us, until we allow Him to put a ring on our finger and sandals on our feet, and until we allow Him to kill the fatted calf. For why? Because we are His sons and daughters who were dead but are alive again. We are His children who were lost but now, because He sought us, are found.