> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://amemamem.com.br/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # A God Who Hides Himself - URL: https://amemamem.com.br/en/a-god-who-hides-himself/ - Published: 2026-08-26T02:19:36.000Z - Updated: 2026-11-09T01:05:25.000Z - Description: Can we still read some words as if we were hearing them for the first time? - Author: Airton Humber - Tags: #en, #de-deus-que-se-esconde ## Truly, you are a God who hides himself There are things we have read so many times that we no longer notice exactly what is written. Before we even finish a sentence, our mind has already completed it with what we have learned about it. This happens when we read the Bible too. For centuries, men and women have sought to understand the Scriptures, have organized what they understood and have passed that understanding on to the following generations. There is much for which we can be grateful. But there is a question that perhaps perhaps it is better to ask: **Can we still read some words as if we were hearing them for the first time?** Not to reject what we have learned. Not to build a new doctrine. Not to prove that someone was wrong. Just to listen. > Truly, you are a God who hides himself. And this same God says: > You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will let myself be found by you. Perhaps there is something important here for the road we want to begin. **God hides.** **But God lets himself be found.** --- ## A mystery, not a riddle Paul speaks repeatedly of a **mystery**. And perhaps we have turned mystery into something like a riddle: something that has to be solved intellectually. But a riddle, once solved, stops being a riddle. **A mystery can be revealed and still remain a mystery.** Paul even says what the mystery is: > Christ in you, the hope of glory. And even after saying this, he keeps working, writing, explaining, praying and struggling so that his brothers and sisters may reach full understanding. As if words were too small for what he was striving to show. And he also says: > In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. **Hidden.** Perhaps it is no accident that he also says: > Your life is hidden with Christ in God. The psalmist had said: > He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High… There is something here that we want to contemplate without hurry. **Not to solve the mystery.** **But to seek it.** --- ## Let us return to the beginning Perhaps we have often started in the middle. So this time, we want to return to the beginning. > In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and empty. There was darkness over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God hovered over the waters. Then: > God said: Let there be light; and there was light. It is an extraordinarily simple scene. **God.** **The Spirit of God.** **The Word of God.** **Darkness.** **Light.** And there is a detail that deserves our attention: **the lights in the sky did not yet exist.** The sun, the moon and the stars will only appear later in the account. The first light in the Bible, therefore, does not depend on the sun. God speaks: **Let there be light.** And there is light. --- ## In the beginning was the Word Much later, another text begins in a surprisingly similar way: > In the beginning was the Word… John does not begin by saying: **In the beginning was Jesus.** He writes: **the Word.** And he continues: > All things were made through him. Then: > In him was life, and this life was the light of men. **Word…** **Life.** **Light.** And again: > The light shines in the darkness. Only afterward will John say: > The Word became flesh. Perhaps we have read these words so many times that we already know what we should think before even hearing them. So this time, we do not want to explain too quickly. **We only want to ask: what is John trying to show us?** --- ## And who is this Christ? Paul also takes us to the beginning. Speaking of the Son, he says that: > in him all things were created and that: > all things were created through him and for him. He also says that he is before all things and that in him all things hold together. But Paul says something else that is perhaps even more unsettling: > Christ in you. And, in another letter: > until Christ is formed in you. **Who is this Christ?** Perhaps the question seems simple because from very early on we learned to read **Jesus**, **Christ**, **Jesus Christ** and **Christ Jesus** practically as a single name. But what if, for a while, we simply respected the words chosen by the authors? When it is written **Jesus**, we will read Jesus. When it is written **Christ**, we will read Christ. When it is written **Jesus Christ**, we will read Jesus Christ. When it is written **Christ Jesus**, we will read Christ Jesus. When it is written **Son**, we will read Son. When John writes **Word**, we will leave Word. And when he writes **light**, we will leave light. Not because we already know that there is necessarily a difference in each of these expressions. **But precisely because we still want to find out.** --- ## The God who said: Let there be light There is, however, a passage of Paul that we cannot ignore. He speaks of the: > light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. And then he goes straight back to the first page of the Bible: > God, who said: Let light shine out of darkness… But Paul is not simply recalling creation. He says that this same God: > has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God **in the face of Christ**. **The “Let there be light” reappears.** But now… **inside man.** Perhaps it is too early to say everything that this means. And perhaps that is exactly where the mystery begins. --- ## From “Let there be light” to “There will be no more night” Perhaps it is worth, before we go on, looking for a moment at the other end of the Bible. We begin in Genesis: > Let there be light. A light that appears before the lights in the sky. But when we reach the last pages of the Scriptures, we find something surprising again. The city has no need of the sun or the moon to light it: > The glory of God lights it, and the Lamb is its lamp. And shortly after: > There will be no more night. They will have no need of the light of a lamp. Nor of the light of the sun. > For the Lord God will give them light. The Bible begins with: **darkness over the face of the deep.** Then: **Let there be light.** And it ends with: **There will be no more night.** Perhaps we should not explain this correspondence too quickly. But perhaps we should also not pass by it without noticing it. In the beginning, a light that does not depend on the sun. In the end, a light that again does not depend on the sun. And between these two ends: > The light shines in the darkness. > I am the light of the world. > You are the light of the world. > Now you are light in the Lord. > Walk while you have the light. > Whoever loves his brother remains in the light. > God… has shone in our hearts. **There is a path running through the Scriptures.** From darkness to light. From: **Let there be light** to: **There will be no more night.** And perhaps there is still a delicacy in the very word that names the last book of the Bible. **Apocalypse means revelation, unveiling.** What was hidden is uncovered. What we did not see begins to be seen. Perhaps this has some relation to the mystery of which Paul speaks so much: **a mystery that was hidden for generations and has now been made manifest.** And, at the center of this mystery: **Christ in you, the hope of glory.** We do not want to conclude yet. We only want to keep these two sentences before us: **Let there be light.** **There will be no more night.** And to ask: **What happened between one and the other?** --- ## How we want to walk This reflection does not begin with a conclusion. It begins with a search. We do not want to prove that an old understanding is wrong. Nor do we want to quickly replace it with a new understanding. We want to do something perhaps harder: **listen again.** Perhaps we need to leave some answers in silence for a while. Return to Genesis. Listen to John. Listen to Paul. Observe the words carefully. And allow one passage to illuminate another. Because the one in whom **all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden** also said: > Seek, and you will find. And the God who hides himself promised: > I will let myself be found by you. So perhaps the best way to begin is not with a statement. But with some questions: **Who is the Word who was in the beginning?** **What light is this that shines even before the lights in the sky?** **Why does John say that in the Word was life, and that this life was the light of men?** **What happened when the Word became flesh?** **What did Peter recognize when he looked at Jesus and said: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”?** **And what is Paul trying to make us understand when he says: “Christ in you”?** We do not need to answer quickly. Perhaps, for now, it is enough to do what Jesus repeated so many times: **He who has ears to hear, let him hear.**