John 7:32-36
Is Jesus talking about “hide and
seek” in these verses? Most of us have
played the game of “hide and seek” at sometime in our life. It is a game most of us played as children or
now play with our children or grandchildren.
From the experience of my childhood I can testify that it is best played
indoors with some defined perimeters. If
my older brother Fred and his friends wanted to get rid of me they would say,
“let’s play hide and seek” and we would not set boundaries, and it worked every
time, till I learned they had left that area for the big park or one of their
friend’s home. But it is not only a
child’s game it also happens in relationships, it’s not called “hide and seek”
but it has the same affect, it’s called hiding our feelings or stuffing them so
far away that we never let the other person or persons find the real you. This is not a fun game, but it is a game that
is played in marriages, families, church, at the office, and it is a game most
of us have played. It has this affect;
it keeps you from knowing the person or being known by the other person. It keeps intimacy out of those relationships,
and it is impossible to be intimate without trust and openness. Is that what was going on with Jesus and
these people in Jerusalem? And maybe a
better question is, could that be what is going on between you and Jesus?
Now we know this from the
Scripture, that the Pharisees heard the crowd saying, could this be the Christ,
and they sent officers to arrest Him. At
this point, Jesus told the crowd, “I will be with you
a little longer, and then I am going to him who sent me. You will seek me and you will not find
me. Where I am you cannot come.” “The Jews said to one another, “Where does
this man intend to go that we will not find him? Does he intend to go to the Dispersion among
the Greeks and teach the Greeks? What
does he mean by saying, ‘You will seek me and you will not find me,’ and, ‘Where I am you cannot come’?”
It
sure sounds a lot like “hide and seek” until you examine the information, and
on a closer look you will not find anything but Jesus being transparent with a
people who had closed their thinking to a Messiah who did not meet their
perimeter. And then the question must be
asked, have you done the same thing as this Jewish crowd? Jesus has been very open with the Jewish
people, He has said to them, “I am the bread of
life: whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall
never thirst.” Does that not sound like a claim that only God
could keep? And just a few short verses
later in John 6:47, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes
has eternal life. I am the bread of
life.” In John 5:37-40,
are these the words of a mad man or God, for if he was not God, then we only
have the words of a lunatic. Jesus said,
“And the Father who sent me has himself borne
witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not
believe the one whom he has sent. You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have
eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me
that you may have life.”
Is the crowd the ones playing the game, not of “hide and
seek,” but of “I’m first” and that game is often played, it is my ball and my
rules and it matters not what is true, I want to be in control of my life, as
old blue eyes sang “I did it my way,” well how is that working out in your
relationship with Jesus Christ? Only
when we submit to His authority, only when we acknowledge Jesus, as God, will
we be able to have intimacy with Him.
From
the Back Porch,
Bob
Rice
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