Where’s Waldo?

Where’s Waldo? is the title of a children’s book series created by the English illustrator Martin Handford. The books consist of large illustrations depicting dozens or more people doing everyday things at a given location. Readers are challenged to find Waldo in the picture. Waldo is not an inconspicuous character. Waldo wears a red-and-white-striped shirt, goggle glasses, and a little white-and-red-striped hat. The task seems easy, and yet children and adults spend significant amounts of time looking for Waldo. He’s an excellent example of hiding in plain sight.

Hiding seems to be a very natural instinct. It’s probably one of the first games we played as children. And it appears that we never outgrow the urge to hide. In the biblical story the first occurrence of hiding is associated with Eden. There it was no game, but rather one of the first effects of sin. We started hiding from ourselves and each other using some handy fig leaves. And we tried to hide from God. Since then we have been hiding from our own shame and inadequacies.

Most of the human family has hiding down to an art form. We hide in a wide panorama of places. We often hide from our own shame and loneliness in addictions. And the variety of addictions seems to be endless. Drugs, alcohol, nicotine, and painkillers are only the tip of the iceberg. We hide in gaming and pornography. Sometimes we hide in noise and distraction. For Christians most of these hiding places can be fairly quickly identified and called out for what they are. But the most confusing, and perhaps the best, forms of hiding from God and others occurs when we hide in plain sight. It happens when we hide in church. When we hide under a cloak of religious activities and personal piety.

Most of the human family has hiding down to an art form. We hide in a wide panorama of places.

No Hiding Needed With Jesus

The Samaritan woman at the well in John 4:6-26 had just been touched by Jesus’ words about her past, and her shame had been revealed. So she did what all of us do when we feel vulnerable, when we feel uncertain or unsure. She armed herself with a religious argument. The argument was about right and wrong theology. She tried to get Jesus to choose sides, because as soon as we choose sides, we find a handy place to hide. Jesus, who is the way, the truth, and the life, was beyond getting drawn into an argument.

In Jesus—the “light of the world” (John 8:12)—there is no hiding from ourselves, others, or God. When confronted with Jesus, we cannot hide behind religious debate. He invites us to something different, to a way of vulnerability and openness. Truth is not a set of rules to be debated through. Truth is not an opinion. Truth is not about sorting out who’s right and who’s wrong. What God really wants is honesty, authenticity, and a deep longing to worship Him. We are invited to draw near to Him and to need to be willing to approach His Word—not for stored factual knowledge to debate with. Not as ammunition to prove that we are right and to cover our nakedness. But rather to reach the place where we, like Moses, will be able to see God and be transformed by Him. In the cleft of the rock there will be no need for shame or hiding, rather the wonder of being in His presence and discovering that we are His beloved children who are in desperate need of Him.

God’s “Where are you?” is so much more than our search for Waldo. It invites us to move from fear to friendship, from shame to salvation, from hiding to the openness of God’s outstretched arms. That’s a transition that is offered to all of us every moment of our lives.