A Hide and Seek God

Sermon Notes by Desiree Snyman Easter 3 19th April

Do you have memories of playing hide and seek? Godly play speaks of the playful, paradoxical nature of God as one who both hides and seeks. On the one hand, God actively longs for us and seeks us, as in the parables of the good shepherd, the lost coin, and the lost son. On the other hand, God is hidden, and once we have been found, it becomes our turn to seek. This raises a difficult and deeply human question: what do we do when God disappoints us? What do we do with the apparent absence of God, especially when that absence is felt most sharply at the very moment God seems most needed? For many, there is an unspoken assumption that faith, goodness, or belief should offer some protection from harm. This assumption sits quietly beneath the question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” Yet the promise of faith was never that we would be shielded from reality, but that we would not be alone within it. God does not remove us from suffering, but remains present within it, upholding us even when everything else seems to give way. 

But. We. Had. Hoped.

Cleopas and his companion walk the road to Emmaus carrying not just grief, but collapse. They have not only lost Jesus, but they have also lost the future they had built around him. 

“But we had hoped.” The story contains what I consider to be the four saddest and heaviest words in Scripture. Although it is one word in Greek, I sometimes wonder if the four translation words shouldn’t be four sentences. But. We. Had. Hoped. There is such pain, pathos, emptiness and grief held in each full stop. It the loss of the past but also the loss of the future, the loss of possibility, the loss of hope. I’ve heard these four sentences “But. We. Had. Hoped” many times. But we had hoped that the cancer would be cured. But we had hoped that we would grow old together. But we had hoped that the friend, child, parent would be reconciled to us. But. We. Had. Hoped. These are not merely words of disappointment. They are the language of a world that no longer makes sense. Hope has not simply failed; it has been exposed as misplaced. The past is gone, and the future it promised has vanished with it. This is where the story becomes instructive. The risen Christ does not appear at the moment of triumph, nor at the resolution of doubt, but in the midst of confusion, absence, and misrecognition. He walks with them, unrecognised, as they rehearse their loss. 

The striking detail is this: Christ is most fully present precisely where he is least perceived. 

Later, the disciples will say, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road?” Yet in the moment, they experience only brokenness. This is not a contradiction to be resolved but a reality to be held together. The same heart that feels shattered is also, mysteriously, alive with something not yet understood. 

A resurrected faith, then, is not one that replaces brokenness with certainty. It is one that learns to recognise that the burning is already present within the breaking. The absence of God is not the negation of presence, but one of the ways that presence is encountered. 

The turning point comes not through explanation, but through relationship, walking together, listening, and finally, the breaking of bread. It is there, in shared presence, that recognition of the Christ presence occurs. 

Broken hearts and burning hearts

The Emmaus story reveals something essential: presence is not always recognised as presence. The disciples speak at length about Christ’s absence, even as he walks beside them. This reframes how we understand faith. Faith is not the elimination of doubt, nor the replacement of brokenness with wholeness. It is the capacity to hold these realities together without collapsing one into the other. Broken hearts and burning hearts are not opposites. They are the same heart, experienced differently. The crack is not a failure of faith; it is the very place where light enters. As Leonard Cohen wrote, “there is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” Jesus is often drawn to those whose lives have been broken open by grief, illness, or disappointment. It is precisely in those places that something deeper can be encountered, not instead of the pain, but within it.

Spiritual direction and the walk alongside

When I first encountered spiritual direction, it was described to me as a conversation with a soul friend. A holy conversation, not in the sense of being elevated or removed from ordinary life, but in being attentive to the presence of the Holy Spirit within each person. The posture is simple: to be calm, centred, curious, compassionate, and connected. To listen deeply. And to remain open to the possibility that Christ is present, not externally imposed, but quietly emerging within the exchange. The road to Emmaus is a model for this kind of encounter. But it is not only a model for spiritual direction. It is a model for all relationships. To be a partner, a parent, a friend, a caregiver, or a professional of any kind is, at its core, is to walk alongside another person. To listen. To hold space for what is broken without trying to immediately repair it. To remain present long enough for something deeper to be revealed. 

This is what it means to be the body of Christ, not as an abstract idea, but as a lived reality. We become, for one another, the place where presence is encountered. The risen Christ is not encountered as an abstract concept, nor simply as a distant third party, but within the act of shared presence itself. In the giving and receiving of attentive, self-giving love, something is made real that was not previously visible. Recognition happens, and then, as in the Emmaus story, Christ seems to disappear from sight, not because he is gone, but because he is now encountered differently. 

Holding the light for one another

The walk to Emmaus offers a reorientation of faith. God is not absent in the way we often assume. Nor is God present in the way we often expect. The pattern is more subtle: presence is mediated through relationship, revealed in companionship, and recognised in hindsight. 

We are not called to eliminate brokenness, nor to resolve every doubt. We are called to walk alongside one another within doubt and brokenness. We are Emmaus walkers becoming for each other a place where hope can begin again, even if only faintly at first. This is the quiet work of faith: not to provide answers, but to embody presence. And perhaps this is what it means to “hold the Christ-light” for one another, not as something we possess, but as something we make visible through love. 

Brother, Sister, Let Me Serve You

Brother, sister, let me serve you,
let me be as Christ to you;
pray that I may have the grace
to let you be my servant too. 

We are pilgrims on a journey,
and companions on the road;
we are here to help each other
walk the mile and bear the load. 

I will hold the Christ-light for you
in the night-time of your fear;
I will hold my hand out to you,
speak the peace you long to hear. 

I will weep when you are weeping;
when you laugh I’ll laugh with you;
I will share your joy and sorrow
till we’ve seen this journey through.