Divine Hiddenness and the Advent Mystery: A Reflection on Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-9, 5:15-6:3, and Luke 1:26-38
The Book of Wisdom speaks of souls who appear defeated but are secretly held in God’s hand, suffering what looks like destruction while actually participating in divine glory. This is not metaphor or consolation philosophy—this is the structure of how God works in history. The righteous seem to die, the world judges them lost, but the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them. In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died… but they are at peace. What appears as absence is actually presence. What looks like defeat is actually victory being prepared in hiddenness.
This is the exact pattern of the Incarnation. When the angel Gabriel appears to Mary in Nazareth, he announces something the world cannot yet see: The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. The divine presence that seemed absent from Israel—the God who hadn’t spoken through prophets for four hundred years, whose Temple had been desecrated, whose people lived under Roman occupation—is coming. But coming hidden, coming as an infant in a peasant girl’s womb, coming in a way that looks like nothing.
The world sees only what can be measured, only what announces itself with power and visibility. But God works through what is hidden, small, vulnerable. The righteous souls who seem destroyed are actually being perfected in hiddenness. The Virgin who seems insignificant is actually the meeting place of heaven and earth. The infant who will be born in Bethlehem appears to be just another child, but He is the wisdom and power of God entering creation.
Wisdom of Solomon describes this pattern with startling precision: Having been disciplined a little, they will receive great good, because God tested them and found them worthy of himself; like gold in the furnace he tried them, and like a sacrificial burnt offering he accepted them. The hidden ones, the suffering ones, the ones the world dismisses—these are being refined, tested, prepared for revelation. Their hiddenness isn’t punishment or absence; it’s the crucible where divine participation is being forged.
Mary’s “yes” participates in this mystery of hiddenness becoming revelation. When she says Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word, she isn’t passively accepting fate. She’s actively choosing to become the place where God’s hidden work enters the world. Her womb becomes the Holy of Holies, the meeting place of divine and human. What is happening in her body looks like an ordinary pregnancy—hidden, small, vulnerable to scandal and misunderstanding. But it is actually the hinge of history, the moment when God’s eternal plan becomes flesh.
The inner work here is crucial: What in your life looks like defeat, absence, or hiddenness but might actually be where God is most present? The spiritual life often feels like nothing is happening. You pray and feel emptiness. You face your wounds and encounter more pain, not immediate healing. You choose love and the world doesn’t notice. This feels like failure, like God’s absence, like wasted effort. But Wisdom teaches: In the time of their visitation they will shine forth, and will run like sparks through the stubble. The hiddenness is preparation. The suffering is refinement. What feels like death is actually the seed going into the ground.
When Mary receives the annunciation, she has no visible proof, no public vindication, no immediate transformation. She has a word from an angel and a growing secret in her body that will make her look either delusional or immoral to her community. The glory is entirely hidden. Yet she says yes because she trusts that God’s pattern is always incarnation—always entering through the small, the hidden, the vulnerable.
Wisdom describes the righteous as being like a sacrificial burnt offering that God accepts. This is the language of the Temple, of something given completely to God, consumed by divine fire, transfigured. Mary becomes this living offering. Her body becomes the altar where heaven and earth meet. When she says “let it be to me according to your word,” she’s offering herself to be the place where God’s hiddenness becomes flesh. Not understanding fully, not seeing the outcome, but trusting the pattern: God works through what the world overlooks.
The cosmic reality revealed here is that God’s power doesn’t operate through domination but through hiddenness that suddenly blazes forth. The second passage from Wisdom declares: The righteous live forever, and their reward is with the Lord; the Most High takes care of them. Therefore they will receive a glorious crown and a beautiful diadem from the hand of the Lord. This isn’t compensation for suffering—it’s the revelation of what was always true but hidden. The righteous were always in God’s hand; now it becomes visible. The glory was always being prepared; now it manifests.
The Nativity follows this pattern exactly. When Christ is born in Bethlehem, the glory that was hidden in Mary’s womb for nine months suddenly appears—but still in hidden form. Angels appear to shepherds, not to Herod’s court. Magi follow a star, but the religious leaders in Jerusalem miss it entirely. The King of the Universe arrives as a refugee infant whose parents can’t find proper lodging. The revelation is genuine—heaven and earth are united, death is being destroyed from within, the cosmos is being transfigured—but it remains hidden to those who can only see power and visibility.
What does this mean for spiritual life? It means you cannot judge your progress by what’s visible. You cannot measure transformation by whether you feel different, whether others notice, whether circumstances change immediately. The righteous in Wisdom seemed to have died—the appearance was total defeat. But they are at peace, held in God’s hand, being refined like gold. Mary’s pregnancy looked scandalous, her son’s birth looked unremarkable, His life would end looking like ultimate failure on a Roman cross. But every moment of hiddenness was divine presence becoming more deeply incarnate in creation.
The childhood wounds you’re facing, the anger you’re finally feeling instead of suppressing, the shadow you’re integrating with compassion—this inner work looks like nothing. The world doesn’t reward it. You don’t get visible transformation immediately. You sit in the discomfort and pray “Lord Jesus Christ, show me Your loving kindness here in this pain,” and often feel nothing. This is the hiddenness of Advent. This is Mary carrying God in her womb while life looks ordinary. The work is real, the presence is genuine, the transformation is happening—but hidden, being refined, preparing for revelation.
Wisdom teaches that this hiddenness is not passive waiting but active participation: In the time of their visitation they will shine forth, and will run like sparks through the stubble. They will govern nations and rule over peoples, and the Lord will reign over them forever. The hidden work becomes cosmic authority. The suffering becomes governance. Not because God rewards endurance, but because what was being forged in hiddenness was always participation in divine nature, always theosis, always the union of human and divine that will transfigure creation.
Mary’s yes enables this. When she accepts the angel’s word, she becomes the prototype of what every human is called to: receiving divine life into the hidden places of your existence, carrying that presence through apparent ordinariness, trusting that what is being formed in darkness will be revealed in light. She doesn’t understand fully—How shall this be, since I have no husband?—but she trusts the pattern: God enters through weakness, works through hiddenness, reveals through what the world overlooks.
The challenge for us is trusting the hiddenness. We want immediate vindication, visible transformation, proof that our inner work matters. But the pattern is always Advent: the glory is coming, is actually already present, but hidden in smallness, in waiting, in the womb of ordinary life. The righteous souls who seem destroyed are being held in God’s hand. The Virgin who seems insignificant is carrying the Creator. Your prayer that feels like nothing is actually communion with divine presence. Your facing of wounds that no one sees is actually the crucible where gold is refined.
Wisdom concludes with a warning to rulers and authorities: Because you did not rule rightly, nor keep the law, nor walk according to the purpose of God, he will come upon you terribly and swiftly. The powers that rely on visibility, domination, and force will be overthrown by the hidden work of God. Herod searches for the child to destroy Him, but the child who looks powerless is actually the one who will judge nations. Rome occupies Israel and seems invincible, but the infant born in Bethlehem inaugurates a kingdom that will outlast all empires. What looks weak is strong; what looks hidden is being prepared for cosmic revelation; what looks defeated is actually victorious.
This is the theology of Advent and Nativity: God works through hiddenness. The Incarnation doesn’t begin with angelic armies conquering Rome—it begins with a teenage girl saying yes to an impossible word and carrying God secretly in her body. The glory is real, the transformation is genuine, the presence is actual—but hidden, small, vulnerable, easily overlooked. And that hiddenness is not a limitation but the very method of divine love, which never coerces, never dominates, but always invites, always enters through what is willing to receive.
So when your spiritual life feels hidden, when your inner work seems to produce nothing visible, when you’re facing your shadow and the world doesn’t notice—remember Mary. Remember the righteous souls in God’s hand. Remember that in the time of their visitation they will shine forth. The hiddenness is not absence. It’s pregnancy. It’s Advent. It’s divine presence becoming incarnate in the hidden places of your life, preparing for a revelation that will transfigure everything.
The Greater Horizon 