Hidden in God
[“For you have died, and your life with the Christ is hidden by and in God” (Col 3:3 [EA]).]
O Lover,
One of the features of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures is the way in which they can speak to every here and now with fresh meaning and impetus. That recently happened to me yet again with the Pauline text cited above. Granted, the Colossians 3:1-11 passage about life in the Christ had not been particularly impactful for me in the past, but after three decades of being shaped by Christian mystical writings and practice I was recently ambushed by the rich and layered theme of “hiddenness” in You.
So what has seized me in this tardy revisit to the Colossians passage? I begin with the key Greek word Kekryptai which is the passive verb form of kruptō (“to hide” [as in “cryptology”]). The passive voice means that the letter’s addressees are acted upon rather than initiating action. In this larger context the actor, the “Hider,” is clearly You, O Lover. Whatever else the entire chapter is conveying to its readers, there is the motif of You drawing them to, and hiding them within, Yourself.
Furthermore, the grammar of our text—improbably the pithy prepositions “with,” “by,” and “in”—is telling. The word “with” hints of the interconnectedness of the Christ and the faithful together being hidden in You. Implicit in this journey is the Christ’s role as harbinger or “first fruits” (I Cor 15:20-23). The “by” in my translation above signs both Your agency and the receptivity of the passive voice. And the preposition “in” points to the immersive extent of union with You.
In addition, I am being shown how the themes of being hidden in You and kenósis (Your “self-outpouring” [Phil 2:7]) enrich and deepen each other. In Jesus’s life-long embodiment of Your intrinsic disposition to giving Yourself away he invites us to do the same. Thus, in a mingling of metaphors, the emptying, the pouring out of the false self, is paired with the hiddenness in which is nested, in the words of Merton, our true self. This is a towering irony: that we should be drawn toward and hidden in You, O Lover, even as You are continuing to pour Yourself out, and in a manner which draws and enables our doing the same. Wonder of wonders!
O Lover, I confess that the very image of You, in the name of Your Christ, drawing us creatures into and hiding us within Your very Divine Life boggles me at all levels. The text’s reference to being hidden in You has come to be for me a seed, a precursor, of later spirituality elaborations which are no less than astonishing: e.g., canto #33 of Dante’s Paradíso, the unítas indistinctiónis set forth by various 13th Century Beguines and Rhineland mystics, the converging “Christification” culminating in the “Omega Point” in Teilhard’s writings, to cite a few. It would appear that this seed in the letter to the Colossians has been but the tip of the iceberg of a living and burgeoning vision of Your M.O. in the unfolding tradition of Jesus.
In recent days I have been alert to new and fresh words of my own to express what all being hidden by and in You might entail. To me it appears to include being concealed, secreted, embedded, absorbed in You. To these words I would add those of being safeguarded and protected. Perhaps most powerful is the nuance of being lost in You as in the phrase “lost in wonder, love and praise” in Wesley’s hymn “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling.” All these passive verb aspects of hiddenness, as with the term Mystérium, not surprisingly presuppose an M.O. on Your part more inscrutable than self-evident.
Finally, the aura permeating the newer testament, whether in the letter to the Colossians or the so-called “messianic secret” in Mark, is that embedded in hiddenness is the promise of full exposure in Your good time. In the words taken from that gospel, “nothing is hidden which shall not be revealed” (4:22). I live buoyed by the hope that all beings shall participate in Your consummatory Epiphany (“showcase”), Your cosmic Voilà! Thus being hidden in You is both penúltima and última, precursor and Télos. And I too, minute and precious, found and lost (in both respects), am a participant on the crest of this Your astonishing drama. Glory be!
