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Hide and Seek

James, look at me! Do you know who broke the vase? Shuffling his feet, looking at

the ground, making himself small, James quickly glances up at the stern face only to

gaze at the floor once more. His body language calls out very loudly: Guilty! Dont

want to be here! Need to hide!

In his desire to become invisible, James demonstrates his commonality with the rest

of mankind. Notice how, whenever some one does a wrong thing, the immediate

inclination is to look for that hiding place, literally or emotionally. Parents and others

in authority rightly see this attitude as a greater problem than the actual wrong-doing.

And with good reason, because it projects a refusal to take responsibility for (mis-)

deeds done.

It was not always so. The perfect God (1 John 1:5 God is light and in Him is no

darkness at all) created a perfect relationship between Himself and His vicegerent.

Adam and Eve walked with God in the purest of light, sharing in the purity of GodHimself. How things changed!

If you feel far from God Guess who has moved? Adam and Eve suddenly felt far

from God. Their intuitive reaction? Move! Get out of the light. Hide in darkness!

The godlikeness promised by Satan as per the Hebrew mind-set, involves more than

just moral categories. It involves what is useful compared to useless, the implication

of stewardship/technological power (see the final temptation of Christ). The fall

involves above all else a turning away from God and a turning to self for all our

reference points. Satan knew this very well and he managed to seduce man into

turning Gods created societal order topsy-turvy.

And so, Adam and Eve enjoyed the fruits of technological power first and foremost in

seeking concealment. The fig-leaves, the first self-willed technological act, was less

concerned with covering nakedness and shame as is quite commonly taught, but

much more deeply with avoiding a continuing relationship with the Makerby

blending in with the background pattern of nature as a whole.

This basic evasive impulse to hide by blending into the created order accounts for a

great deal of mysticism. It expresses the perversion of a tortured conscience (in

Romans 1:23 Scripture informs that man got to changing the incorruptible for the

corruptible). There is great irony in this situation. Man created in Gods image and setas the highest created authority now chooses to blend in with the lowlier forms of life,

even declaring himself to be a direct descendant of those lowlier forms of life! When

the Psalmist says that he is a worm (Psalm 22:6) he means it figuratively, but

esteemed scientists agree with New Agers that all is one and that the worm is mans

brother (and sister, as it is a hermaphrodite, having both male and female sex organs).

The fact that James earnestly desires to be swallowed up by the ground seems to make

the worm relationship theory all the more plausible. Ever since Adam and Eves dive

in the bushes the dictum holds true that one of the hardest things to teach a child (and

a good many adults) is that truth is more important than consequences.

Reclaiming the purity of the light, the basking in the light of lights, as symbolised inMoses when he came down from meeting God on the mountain, in Pauls meeting

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with the Lord on the road to Damascus, is mans perpetual yearning. The Christian

scientist Blaize Pascal stated the problem eloquently: There is a God shaped vacuum

in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by

God, the Creator, made known through Jesus. For the Christian, that person who has

been blessedly touched by the redeeming finger of God, the ultimate is not just

forgiveness of sin and the like; the ultimate is restored intimacy with God at the levelakin to marriage, as a good friend of mine put it once during a school assembly.

We need to realise where we come from and where our wholesome desires are to lie.

This is also what we need to set before the children entrusted to us. If ever there were

one apprenticeship that is obsolete for human beings, it is would be fashion design.

Dressing up the ugly and hiding it under an acceptable faade is what we are born

with. It is clearly seen in all walks of life, be it politics, banking, domestic living or

any other realm of society one cares to name. Let us take the world by surprise and

divest ourselves of this natural inclination, take responsibility for what we do and

thereby show that we have risen above ground zero in the strength of a God Who not

only redeemed His people in Jesus Christ, but also continues to work on theirsanctification, increasingly Christ-like living, through the Holy Spirits guidance.

Dr Herm JG Zandman

07/05/20013