Hidden
Most all of us have grown up with some childhood traditions that have carried into our adult lives. These traditions could include; family dinners, baking Christmas cookies, breakfast in bed for birthdays or hiding Easter baskets from your children so hard that they have to search between 1-24 hours to find their candy. The afore mentioned tradition was of paramount importance to my father. Each year, he would sadistically hide 4 Easter baskets as hard as humanly possible only to watch his frustrated children grow in their aggravation in the absence of their candy. My older brother was often found to be the most irritated with the tradition as he was the penultimate final searcher, failing to find his candy before anyone else. His exasperation would only compound as each of his siblings, myself included, would find our baskets first and begin stuffing our faces with candy while he would slump at the table and pout for not having found his.
I remember one year, when both my brother and I had come home from college only to find that Dad has once again hidden our Easter baskets. Low and behold, my older brother found himself left as the only candy-less victim sitting at the table harrumphing. I kind of figured he should have grown out of this behavior by now…I may or may not be referring to my father…or brother…or both!
I must humbly admit that I never knew the joy of hiding things from my children until I had children of my own! Over the past 22 years I too have carried the torch of bringing suffering to my own candy-less children. However, after years of hiding baskets in the fish house, the shed, suspended beneath the dining room table, frozen solid in the deep freezer and any other creative place I could find, there came a day when I ran out of places to hide the baskets. Therefore, one Easter morning a couple of years ago my children woke to find their Easter baskets displayed in plain sight.
“Whooah! Dad’s getting lazy!” My son arrogantly proclaimed.
“What gives Dad?” asked my youngest.
“Good! I hate looking for the baskets,” insisted my oldest.
“Why are the baskets empty?” asked my 3rd born.
“Oh! Well, I ran out of places to hide your baskets,” I confessed, “So I hid the contents. Have fun!”
My children DID NOT have fun…but I sure did! That may have been my favorite Easter egg hunt of my nearly 50 year old life, as i watched them dig in the coffee grounds, sugar, flour, cornstarch and many other semi-concealed containers. You would think I would have grown out of it by now.
Isn’t it nice to know that God is not like that? God is not hiding the truth in the weeds or in the fish house or in the dishwasher trying to keep us from finding the way to salvation. He lays it clearly in front of us in the person of Jesus…His Son! He reveals it to us in the Gospels. Jesus is the Way! He is the ONLY Way! Jesus conquered sin and death and has made a way! We know this is true because the tomb is empty! We know this to be true because Jesus is not dead…He is ALIVE! Thank God that he is not hiding…he wants to be found…by us!
May we seek and find the risen Savior today!
