Glory of “Hidden”
The big tent in the wilderness. It was called a tabernacle.
This huge tent became the place where God met with his people about 3000 years ago. The Blue of God, his glory, was there. One would think a tent like that would be made with gorgeous colors that shout, “Something special takes place here!”
And it was.
Deep red was dyed on wool; white linen was woven to pristine perfection; purple tapestries filagreed with real gold thread displayed pictures and murals of art. It would have been impressive to see.
But it wasn’t seen. Because God gave instructions to cover it all with unimpressive . . . brown . . . badger pelts. Now why would he do that? Why did God hide glory?
Fast forward a thousand years. Jesus, the darling of heaven, the stunning brilliant star of morning, the eternal Word of God, comes to earth.
And his coming was concealed under unimpressive, ordinary, gritty, humanity.
He was born. That was messy. That was very earthy. He was born to parents who were poor nobodies. To real humans. Humans who had B.O. and got the sniffles and knew how to laugh out loud. He was one of them?
Brown badger pelts?
Jesus taught with stories that were sometimes hard to understand. And the stories were intriguing to the simple, uneducated masses. Yet the depth of his meaning was concealed by the layers of emotions, decisions and everyday experiences the characters in his stories acted out.
Brown badger pelts?
Jesus was good and pure, generous and loving. He did not sin by what he said nor with actions of greed or lust. Yet he bypassed influential, religious leaders. You would think they would have been his kind of people. But Jesus wasn’t easily accessible to them. In fact, if the religious wanted to find Jesus, they would probably have to look for a hole in the wall where he was deep in conversation with a gambler over a hearty meal.
Brown badger pelts?
Jesus wasn’t hiding. Yet he was hidden. Why? Three thousand years ago God did not hide from his people. Yet his glory was hidden. Why?
This verse does not give the answer. But it might help us wrestle. Proverbs 25:2 says,
“It is the glory of God to conceal a matter
and the glory of kings to search it out.”
Let’s sit with that for 45 seconds of silence. No music. No movement but stillness.
Let’s read it again.
“It is the glory of God to conceal a matter
and the glory of kings to search it out.”
What words stand out? The words “conceal” and “search” stood out to me personally. How about you?
Now, in this stillness, let’s turn those words into a prayer. Here is mine:
“God, help me to search out what you conceal.”
Now you try. And don’t stress. You can’t pray wrong.
