I recall so well the evening, many years ago, when our son Dan came to manifest that sign of self-hood which is modesty. Like we parents can so often be, I was one step behind him, responding to his todays out of yesterday’s assumptions. So, just as I had always done, I stepped into the bathroom as he was getting out of the tub. I was just about to follow our routine of chirping about teeth to be brushed and prayers to be said, about bedtime stories and waiting teddy-friends... this comfy ritual of bath-to-bed. But this time, instead of chatting through his customary post-bath mellowness, Dan grabbed a towel, held it to himself, and cried, "Mom! Don’t look at me!"

Yes, I know. I had all those child-development courses. I had read all those books. My head knew that his emerging sense of self was right and good. But this was so sudden, so startling. My heart stirred in protest: Dan, my precious child; I know every inch of you...I carried you within me...I have tended all your bumps and kissed away your owies...you don’t need to hide from me...

Thanks be to God, I didn’t say any of that. I simply excused myself and stepped quickly away, leaving Dan to tend himself. Later, after he was contentedly asleep, I sat in my prayer-chair and touched the tender feelings of loss, the strange mixture of feelings which flood parents when our child takes one more step into independence; the pride and the nostalgia all wrapped together.

It dawned on me that this is a small taste of what God might feel for us. How quickly we pick up our towels and say, "God! Don’t look at me!" God, knowing us utterly, sees our fierce pursuit of independence while yet seeing into our very core. And, as an act of love, God steps back and grants us freedom. We must become separate selves if we are to freely seek the growing intimacy with God which is the unfolding destiny of our life’s journey. Yet through it all, God knows us fully. God has touched our bruises and kissed our skinned knees, but God wants our maturing self-surrender to be a free offering of ourselves.

Perhaps the most wrenching moment of God’s looking at us, seeing behind every towel we grab, is the Crucifixion. For at the Cross, every human reality is laid bare. All of our attempts to hide culminate in our ultimate rejection of the One who suffers because we spurn the truth...the truth that there is no hiding from God. In the sacrifice of Jesus, as Scripture says, God "does not spare his own Son," not even to spare him the mortal blow which our misguided freedom inflicts.

It is only then, only after the Cross, that we experience the true freedom which is God’s unspeakable gift to us. In rising from death, Jesus wins for us the freedom which is truly free; freedom from our sin, freedom to follow, to love and to serve. For freedom Christ has set us free, Scripture says. May that costly freedom which we enjoy be the avenue to greater love, deeper commitment and fuller self-giving...and may we grow to know that God’s piercing gaze upon us is the gaze of a loving parent from whom we need never hide. We can drop our towels, for nothing - no frailty or blemish - can ever drive God away. Christ is risen, dear ones. Nothing we can ever do will separate us from God’s love if we but turn and allow God to redeem all that we seek to hide. To be so utterly known and loved brings us joy and peace beyond measure. Christ is risen indeed. Thanks be to God.