Come out, come out where ever you are..... Day 28 Lent 2015

Day 28  Lent 2015

"Truly, you are a God who hides himself,
    O God of Israel, the Savior."   Isaiah 45.15

The Crucifixion by Antonello da Messina
1475.   I think he captures the "hiddenness."

The hiddeness of God is something that is near and dear to Lutheran Theology.  We often speak of it as the "Theology of the Cross" wherein God is present and at work often times in those places where it seems most unlikely for God to be found.  It spells over into the fact that God in Christ seems to be found in those things which are opposite of what we would expect: God is present in the serving of others, in suffering, in darkness, in weakness, in lastness and leastness and even on the cross.  This is a holy mystery; but nothing new!

The passage above from Isaiah is spoken in the context of God claiming Cyrus the Great (A Persian Gentile emperor) as God's messiah (anointed) and how it is that God will be at work through him.   This is not what the people expected.  God shouldn't be found in a gentile king, but within God's own people...I mean we have a contract of sorts!  What could God be thinking?   Ah, yes, 'your thoughts are not our thoughts' O Lord!  Isaiah will remind us of this in just a few chapters.

Don't assume that God is not present, often God is hidden, to be seen only through the eyes of faith and the assurance of hope.   Look for the hidden God in all that you do and you just might be amazed to discover that God is in the most unusual places--and people!

A prayer:  "Dear God, we certainly don't see the world as you see it!  Help me to see you at work even in the hiddenness of your presence!  Amen"