Long after I became an adult, the Where’s Waldo? books made their highly successful and bestselling appearance. These books were meant for children, but they were designed and marketed targeting adults, because kids don’t typically carry credit cards (no parent is that insane, or at least not for long). And the ultimate purpose of the book was as much for the adult as for the child.

 
Brilliant!

 
The book idea was the brainchild of British writer Martin Handford, who had been “gifted” at drawing complex and highly detailed crowd scenes. He published the very first book titled Where’s Wally? in 1987. The books were re-titled Where’s Waldo? for Americans as they quickly became a worldwide phenomenon prior to Waldo’s much more effective child-attention, kid-digital-brain tractor-beam replacement – the cell phone.

The idea of the books is to keep kids occupied for many hours trying to pick out Waldo somewhere on each of the monumentally busy, large-format pages filled with distractions everywhere. It worked. Fortunes were exchanged in every world literary marketplace, and Martin Handford presumably retired early, pleased that, unlike cell phones, his invention was totally sustainable and was destined to become fodder for many landfills.

 
The Christmas holiday season is very much like a Where’s Waldo? book. Like it or not, particularly in America, we are very deeply immersed in our esteemed merchant culture and are literally bombarded with commercial deals and good ideas to siphon off our cash. We are thus scientifically targeted, spied on by our Waldo-replacement cell phones, and literally covered over by a blizzard of electronic email notices, most of whose subjects are so brazen we don’t even bother to open them at all.

 
Digital reality aside, we leave home to deliberately siphon off more cash into the brick-and-mortar shopping establishments, mapped out for us in advance by the clever, colorful, and alluring circulars that arrived by snail mail. We finally enter the doors of the Christmas marketplaces that have been elaborately wreathed in Christmas cheer since August.

 
Looking around, we see hundreds of distracted people walking down aisle after aisle piled high with glittering treasures and one-time good deals that promise to be sold out tomorrow. The Christmas world in America is designed to be this way for one reason: the almighty cash flow.

 
That is not spoken of as a pejorative. The merchant culture of the United States is one of the strongest characteristics of cultural power and expression of true freedom. It may be an odd characteristic, but it is also dead-on accurate. The power of freedom is driven by economic success, and economic success is the fuel that powers and protects this great nation.

 
But in all that distraction, in all that glitter, treasure, power, and masses of people and things –where in all of it can we find Jesus, the living Christ of Christmas? The word Christmas is directly derived from the Old English phrase Cristes mæsse – which literally means “Christ’s Mass,” as in the worship of Christ. Thus, the word itself implies we will worship Christ during these days.

 
To understand Where’s Waldo?, you must first understand that the meaning and very purpose of the books are to seek him out from all the monumentally busy Waldo-world pages filled with distractions everywhere. As with Waldo, if you open Waldo’s pages with no desire or intent to find him, you will certainly not.

 
Thus, in a country where almost no one even understands that the word Christmas literally means “Christ worship” (or it would have been cancelled, outlawed, and changed long ago), probably very few secular-minded people leave their homes intent on worshiping Christ as they go about their business on His holiday.

 
But even for us few called-out Christ worshipers (Matthew 7:13-14), we must deliberately, by design, leave home looking for Jesus, because “few are those who find” (Matthew 7:14). As Christians we venture out into the culture seeking to become people of our Oath, then looking for our Lord Master Jesus as our permanent calling – especially in the secular marketplace.

 
Today, I am likely to see Jesus ringing a bell behind a red pot. I will see Him as an untouchable, invisible homeless person needing a coat and some gloves. I will see a single mom struggling with her kids, and I can immediately tell her Christmas is going to be very slim and hard indeed. I see Jesus in a wealthy person who obviously has everything anyone could want – except a sincere smile and nod from a stranger. I see Jesus in the person at the cash register who looks very tired and harried. She needs me to offer her a favorite candy bar or a coffee. I can do something for all these people because I am doing it for Jesus, as He has directed me to care for and love each of them as much as I do myself.

 
“Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? And when did we see You as a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? And when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it for one of the least of these brothers or sisters of Mine, you did it for Me.’” (Matthew 25:34-40)

 
The hospitals are full of Jesus’ who need a stranger stopping by just to spend 10-15 minutes with them during the holidays. There are also children there who would see any small toy as an extravagant gift, no matter what. There are families in countless waiting rooms that need a word of prayer for their loved ones. They will drink up your words of life like the offering from Heaven that they really are. There is a widow or widower you know who will probably spend Christmas home alone because no one asked them to join them, and they don’t want to bother anyone.

 
And then, as you quickly stop at a fast-food place for lunch, there will be a person sitting alone in a booth who looks like they are going through hell, because they really are. They might be dirty, maybe not look totally sane – but they will look hungry. They need food much worse than you do.

 
But again, it is easy to drive or simply pass by all these opportunities to find Jesus on His sacred holiday and not look for Him at all. We have our list, are checking it twice, and none of these versions of Jesus are on it.

 
Our enemy, Satan, does not want you to look for Jesus at all, anywhere, ever. It’s way too risky. They might reject you. They may not want to hear your prayer. The staff may ask you to leave. Other people are watching you. God may want you to actually give His Son a hug, but they are dirty and smell. You might wind up embarrassed or rejected in public just because you wanted to find Jesus. And you barely have enough cash to check off your entire list to begin with.

 
But in the end, God promises to reward His obedient children. “The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’” (Matthew 25:40)

 
What does that really mean, beloved Christian? It means that you have the calling and the ability to go out today, this season, and this time of mutual distraction, find the Real Jesus, and present Him His gift from your hand to His. Our God has instructed each of His people in no uncertain terms that a gift, however small, given from the heart of our Righteous Father to His Son by your hand will not be forgotten by New Year’s Eve, but will be remembered throughout all the ages to come.