Advent: We see what we’re looking for

I’m old enough to remember reading “Highlights Magazine” in the waiting room at the doctor’s office. My favorite feature was the “Hidden Pictures” puzzle. The task was to find a number of small images that had been hidden within a larger picture. Kids were given a list of exactly what to look for — along with the assurance that they were all, in fact, there. But somehow, the puzzle remained challenging, nonetheless.

I experienced something even more instructive as a parent, watching our youngest son pursue his interest in falconry. The process was far too involved for anyone who was simply curious. Only someone committed to persevering over the long haul could make it through the series of hoops required to keep and train a bird. But after our son passed an exam, earned the money for all the necessary equipment, built a mews in the back driveway, had it all inspected by the state’s Division of Wildlife, and found a sponsor, it was time to capture an immature red tail hawk.

Of course, first, we had to find one. Unlike Highlights’ “Hidden Pictures,” there were no guarantees. For several weekends, various family members drove our son around wooded areas to look for birds. Stretching our necks to the trees, we didn’t see much of anything at first. But as time passed, we learned how and where to look. By the time he set his bird free two years later, most of us were seeing hawks everywhere. The life lesson was clear: we see what we are looking for and once we see it, it cannot be unseen.

During Advent, the church encourages us to renew our search for God and teaches us how and where to look for him. Our faith reassures us that God is hidden in plain sight. Indeed, God is everywhere; the whole world is a sanctuary of his presence, a tent of meeting in the wilderness, a temple at the center of human activity.

And yet, we don’t see God everywhere. Perhaps it’s because fewer of us are looking for him. But I suspect that it is even more because those of us who are looking no longer see the world the way our forebears in faith did.

Medieval Christians held an entirely sacramental view of life. For them, nothing was random or devoid of meaning. Everything was divinely ordained and brimming with significance. God was neither absent nor silent. Creation continually proclaimed his presence and his providence. Everything came from God and led back to him. And God was intimately involved in human life, always there in the thick of it. Because they were fluent in the language of sign and symbol, our medieval ancestors knew what they were looking for. They searched with the certainty of knowing that God could be found, and that he wanted to be found.

Our post-enlightenment analytical mindset has largely sequestered the synthesizing soul from how we approach life. As a result, most of us have been robbed of the interior confidence that all is in God and that in God, all is One. We are still taught that God comes in history and mystery; that Christ will eventually return to us in victory. But there is a certain “twistery” we wrestle with inside — an ancient and resurgent lie too many of us embrace. It tells us that God does not come, that looking for him is a waste of time.

The experience of God’s immanence has the power to unite us to the Divine narrative, the great current of human history that will carry us to the ocean of eternity. Without it, Christmas remains locked in the past, a 2,000-year-old historical event no more relevant to us than the fall of Troy. When that happens, the presence of God here and now escapes us, and the victory of salvation eludes us. And yet, God’s word still rings out: “When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart” (Jer 29:13).

God is and God is Emmanuel, with us always and in all ways. Once we have seen the baby in the manger, we cannot unsee him. And so, Advent will always be a time for examining what we are looking for, and a chance to recognize that God sees us because he is looking for us.

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