The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water, told me: 'On whomever you see the Spirit come down and remain, He is the One who will baptize with the Spirit.' Now I have seen and testified that He is the Son of God." --Jn 1:29-34

Jesus, the hidden God.  John did not know Him.  They did not grow up together.

John had spent his life in the desert; now, like Jesus, about thirty years old. All his days in the desert prepared him and those he preached to, for this signal event, so long waited for, yet inevitably coming to pass, in secret, all hidden until the time came.

Christmas is known and celebrated all over the world. Yet in all this celebration Jesus may indeed be a hidden God. Christmas trees and Christmas decorations, Christmas cards and Christmas shopping, Christmas greens and Christmas parties. Yet one may be hard pressed to find Jesus. It is permitted in the state, the county, the town, to do everything for Christmas, but no crib, no creche, no manger, no Mother and Child, Joseph and the shepherds and the three wise men. That must be hidden.

It can be a bit puzzling. Advent is smothered in a Christmas season that long predates Christmas. Saint Nicholas gets mixed up in it all by way of a fairy tale Santa that has nothing to do with the original, save the name. And he had nothing to do with Christmas. The gifts of the Magi on Epiphany are moved ahead to Christmas day. So the whole is confused and distorted. It can be exasperating. And some are sorely tempted to dismiss the whole as commercialism triumphant world wide.

Maybe.

Perhaps if we heed the Spirit like John, the hidden Jesus may be manifest beneath it all. In it all. For it is a season for family gathering, for children, for reconciliation with God and one another, for mercy and compassion on the needy. There is more kindness and mercy. There is something in the air. There is something going on beneath, behind, hidden in it all. The Spirit can reveal Jesus in it all if we listen, if we are open and aware. We can penetrate glitter and tinsel and reach the Crib. In the human heart. In the human scene.

For the Christian mystery is always going to involve a difficult response to the Spirit, and that in every scene and situation. Christ remains a hidden God. But not an absent one.

He was hidden in the cave at Bethlehem in the midst of a world that did not know His presence. Yet the Spirit revealed Him even to the poor and inconsequential, to the inadequate wisdom of the East in the Magi. And when the time came, John made Him known even though he did not know Him. The Spirit revealed to John.

The Spirit reveals to us and to all if we listen. It was just as hard to recognize Jesus in Israel as it is for us in Bardstown or in our own hearts. He is in our times, is present in our days. Revealed by the Spirit in His Church, in His disciples, in His word and sacrament. The world did not go running after Jesus when He came, thus He was manifest by the Spirit. It is no different today. The world does not flock to His Church. Yet the Spirit reveals Him as there, truly there.

That being so, we ought not be surprised that Christ is so hard to find in Christmas. He has always been hard to find. Not so much because He is hidden, but because we do not see in the light of the Spirit.

How great our joy then in the Spirit to know that He has come. That He lives among us. And loves us. And is revealed ever so subtly, so gently: in the good that people do, in kindness and mercy, in forgiveness and generosity, in concern for the poor, the sick, the afflicted and addicted. It is all the work of the Spirit manifesting Jesus. And how poignant, pitiful, His presence in all who suffer. They are a multitude.

Deus absconditus: O hidden God, be manifest to us and to all. And surely too we can pray that our celebration of the Christian mysteries may become more worthy, endowed with more grace and beauty, be more intelligent and perceptive, that the hidden Christ may be fully revealed in the Spirit.  Amen.