Have you ever noticed the white “arrow” between the “E” and “x” of the Federal Express ( FedEx) logo?  Probably many who have seen the FedEx logo thousands of times have never noticed the arrow, but once you see it, it is very obvious and you see it every time you look at the logo.  The logo designer was very clever in incorporating the arrow which represents quickness, precision, the pursuit of excellence, and tenacity in the face of adversity.  

     We might say the arrow is “hidden in plain sight,” which refers to something that is seemingly hidden, but is actually not hidden and is easy to find. It is there right in front of you, but you can often miss it if you are looking for or focused on something else. 

      Such was the case when God the Son came to earth and took on human flesh and lived among us (See Jn. 1:14 and Heb. 2:9, 14,15).   Although Jesus Christ was “the radiance of His (God’s) glory and the exact representation of His nature...” (Heb. 1:3), the majority of His own people, the Jews, rejected Him as the promised Messiah (see Jn. 1:11) because he did not fulfill their expectations of a military ruler that would free them from Roman oppression.  He demonstrated before them the very character of God in all that He was and did, but they missed the obvious because they were fixated on their own concept of who and what the Messiah should be and do.  They failed to take into account the Old Testament passages that indicated that the Messiah must first suffer for sins (Eg., Psa. 22 and Isa.53).      

     John, in his Gospel, wrote that “No man has seen God at any time (for ‘God is spirit’…Jn. 4:24); the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him” (Jn. 1:18).   The word “explained” is the Greek “exegeted” which means “brought forth into visibility that which was there all the time but not seen.” Jesus was “God, hidden in plain sight!”  Even His own disciples struggled a bit with Jesus being fully God and fully man.  In the Upper Room, after washing the disciples’ feet, Jesus then said, ” ‘I go to prepare a place for you (by dying on the cross and returning to heaven)  but I will  come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, you may be also. And you know the way where I am going.’  Thomas said to Him, ‘Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the way?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.  If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.’ Philip said to Him, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how do you say, ‘Show us the Father.’ ‘Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me?’ ” (Jn. 14:3-10).  In other words, “He who has seen the visible Son, has seen the invisible Father” for Jesus said, “I and the Father are one” (Jn. 10:30).  Thus when you take a look at Jesus, you are seeing God the Creator of the universe and God the Redeemer who came to sacrifice His life for you as the “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (Jn. 1:29). 

      Many today, like the Jews of Jesus’ day, though looking for peace and purpose and satisfaction and assurance of heaven, are fixated on the wrong things and miss what is right in front of them as the answer to the longings of their life.  They are missing what is in plain sight, that Jesus is indeed the “way, and the truth, and the life” and the only way to heaven and to a victorious, joyous, fulfilling life here on earth  (Jn. 14:6; 10:10).   To many Jesus Christ, like the arrow in “FedEx” is “hidden in plain sight.”  

     Have you been missing the obvious?  The only One who can save and satisfy the longing of your heart, the One who is the “exact representation” of God (Heb. 1:3), gave His life for you to pay the full penalty of your sins and was bodily raised from the dead, returned to heaven and comes to live His resurrected life in all who simply acknowledge that He died for them and receive Him as their only means of salvation.  Now that’s good news. That is the “gospel,” which has the power to save all who believe (Ro. 1:16).  

     Once you see what was hidden in plain sight, like the FedEx “arrow,” it becomes obvious to you. Once you see who Jesus really is and what He came to do and you appropriate that, the eyes of your heart are opened to see Him at work in the daily affairs of your life and throughout the world.  “We were created with a God-shaped vacuum in our heart which only Jesus Christ can fill” (Blaise Pascal).   If you have been trying anything or anyone else to fill that void, Try Jesus!  Our soul can only find rest when it finds rest in Him (Mt. 11:28). 

Forever His,

Pastor Dave