Rediscovering Mystery

The world we live in hungers for the transcendent. A simple look at the top 100 movies of all time proves this to be true. Almost every movie in the list is a science-fiction, fantasy, or "epic" film. All three genres deal with the transcendent. For example, science fiction is not simply about scientific experiments, but about the mystical power of science to take us to higher levels of human existence. Fantasy allows us to see that life is magical, wondrous, and full of surprises. Epic movies remind us that life is bigger than any one individual, to be lived on a grand scale.

These stories strike a chord in the human heart because people love mystery. "We are drawn to things that are beyond our reach, outside our easy grasp. Life without mystery and wonder is a pretty dull existence."[1] Mystery fascinates and intrigues us. We are attracted to it like moths to a flame.

Another indicator of the world's desire for mystery is the rising interest in spirituality. A secular and materialistic philosophy of life has left many people emotionally cold and spiritually empty. People yearn to discover meaning and purpose in their lives. They long for something that transcends the self, something larger than life. In other words, they are starving for mystery.

While the world hungers for mystery and transcendence, the church settles for practical principles and dead moralisms. We in the church attempt to be relevant to the world through simplistic principles designed to maximize comfortable and controllable lifestyles. We assume that this is what the world wants. We fail to realize that the way to be truly relevant to our world is to give mystery the prominence it deserves in our proclamation and practice.

The Neglect of Mystery

Why is mystery often neglected by the church? I can think of at least four reasons. First, mystery is confusing. Mystery demands rigorous reflection on the unfathomable truths of God. If we really believe we are authentically interacting with the very truths of God, we should expect no less than this!

Second, many churches suffer from the "guilt by association" syndrome. Any idea or practice that is associated with a questionable person or institution is deemed unfit, not because of the practice itself, but because of its undesirable connection. For many Christians, mystery sounds too "mystical," and is thus rejected for its possible connections to New Age religions. This is unwarranted. In Paul's day, musterion (Greek for "mystery") suggested a "secret rite" practiced by one of the many existing mystery cults. Worship of the gods was enforced and practiced by the Roman state. For many people, this worship was simply a matter of civic duty. Belief in the gods was dying out among the general populace. The mystery religions rose out of the ashes of these dying beliefs providing people with an opportunity to fulfill their deepest spiritual needs through identification with the mystery cult of their choice. "In some respects Christianity would have looked to an outsider like one of these mystery cults, and certainly St. Paul did not hesitate to appropriate some of their language."[2] Paul was not concerned with the "guilt by association" syndrome. We, like Paul, should not hesitate to speak of mystery. The possibility of being misunderstood does not eradicate our responsibility to speak truly of God's mysteries.

The third reason mystery is often neglected is its perceived impracticality. We are a pragmatic people. Whatever works is often of more value to us than what is true, right, and good. Oftentimes, common sense principles or simple moral rules seem more practical than mind-bending mysteries. Unfortunately, principles and rules divorced from redemptive realities - from mystery -- are ultimately empty of eternal significance and value. They make sense rather than demand faith. We must recognize that we cannot worship a "big God" and expect to live by "simplistic" principles!

Finally, we neglect mystery because we can't control it. We love control, often using religion as a means to this end. When we use religion to be "in control" of our lives, religion becomes dry, dead, and stale rather than the wild adventure and dangerous journey it is intended to be.

Because the church is largely disinterested in mystery, she has expended a large amount of time, money, and effort to explain it away. Seminary education is largely about "explaining away" rather than "preserving" mystery. Church people assume that pastors and theologians are paid to remove mystery - to provide quick solutions and easy answers to difficult problems.

While the world hungers for mystery, the church ignores it, neglects it, or simply explains it away. Yet the Bible is full of mystery. Furthermore, the Bible makes clear our responsibility to preserve and proclaim the mysteries of God.

As a pastor, I am called to be a "steward of the mysteries of God" (1 Corinthians 4:1). A faithful steward manages the property and affairs of another. I have been given a trust from God to preserve, protect, and propagate God's mysteries. I must celebrate them rather than explain them away. I must steward them rather than scrap them as impractical, confusing, or unnecessary. My divine job description is not to be a "Bible answer man" but to be a "sacred mystery man." By faithfully discharging this duty, I hope to keep from the accusation made by a Japanese businessman to Os Guinness, "Whenever I meet a Buddhist leader, I meet a holy man. Whenever I meet a Christian leader, I meet a manager."[3] There is a reason that the world values the insights of the Dalai Lama and Deepak Chopra more than it does the insight of most Christian leaders. The Dalai Lama and Deepak Chopra seem much more spiritual, mystical, in touch with the transcendent - in a word, holy - than most Christian ministers.

Describing Mystery

Christian mystery is "a truth communicated to us by Christian revelation, a truth to which we cannot attain by our unaided reason, and which, even after we have attained to it by faith, we cannot adequately represent with our rational concepts."[4] Simply put, a biblical mystery has two aspects: (1) Mystery is a truth communicated to us by Christian revelation that is so profound that we cannot grasp it on our own. God must reveal it in order for us to know the mystery. (2) Once the mystery has been revealed and embraced by faith, it is so profound that we cannot comprehend it. The mystery, once revealed, remains a mystery. God's revelation and our reception do not cause the mystery to be disappear. Instead, the mystery deepens as our knowledge increases.

With this basic introduction, we can see that mystery has no connection to the modern mystery novel or movie. Mystery is not a puzzle to be "solved." Mystery is not the result of inadequate data or unclear thinking. Mystery does not go away with more knowledge. Clarity in thinking will not remove mystery, but will make it larger. The clearer we think, the deeper the mystery. "Mystery is not the absence of meaning, but the presence of more meaning than we can comprehend."[5]

Mystery is not an excuse for anti-intellectualism or lazy thinking. Reflection upon mystery demands great intellectual effort. Lazy thinking leads to simplistic moralisms. Deep reflection on God's mysteries leads to a life of wonder and worship - the Spirit-filled life. To contemplate mystery is not to stop thinking, but to think outside the box.

Finally, mystery should not be confused with contradiction. Mystery has nothing to do with absurdity or nonsense, such as that expressed in the classic Stephen Foster song: "It rained so hard the day I left, the weather it was dry. The sun so hot I froze to death..." Oscar Wilde was right, "Man can believe the impossible, but can never believe the improbable." Mystery is not about nonsense but transcendence. It is not irrational but supra-rational.

Mystery opposes rationalism, but not rationality. It reveals the limits - not the uselessness - of the human mind. Rationalism is the reduction of reality to what one can describe and explain. Reality is limited to the confines of human reason. Mystery reveals that reality is far more profound than we can possibly imagine. Reality cannot be confined to the mind. Human beings are more than intellect and reality is greater than our conceptions of reality.

Through the prophet Isaiah, God declared, "My thoughts are not your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:8-9). God speaks to us in baby-talk. He condescends to our human limitations by communicating profound truths in simple language - language that does not exhaust reality, but simply allows us to understand. Consequently, the best we can offer to anyone is a glimpse of truth, at best. We can know truly, but never fully. Mystery prevents us from full comprehension.

Michael Card is right: "There is a wonder and wildness to life" that mystery communicates. This wonder and wildness provokes praise. "Mystery is like a cliff: we may not be able to scale it, but we can stand at the foot of it, touch it, praise its beauty."[6]

Leonard Sweet puts it this way: "You figure out a puzzle, you solve a problem, but you kneel in a mystery."

Overview of Mystery in the Bible

Centuries before Christ's birth, the prophet Daniel was given the ability to interpret the dreams of the Babylonian kings (see Daniel 2:18-19, 27-30). Daniel's God proved to be "a revealer of mysteries" (Daniel 2:47, "He who reveals the profound and hidden things" (Daniel 2:22).

During Jesus' earthly ministry, he taught about "the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven" in parables. Through parables, truth was hidden yet revealed. In order to understand Jesus' parables, one needed to rigorously reflect upon them, going beyond the surface to a deeper meaning. Mystery was revealed, but not explained, by the stories.

The Apostle Paul spends considerable time writing about the mysteries of God. This is his divine job description as an apostle of Christ: "Let a man regard us in this manner, as servants of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God" (1 Corinthians 4:1). The need for God to reveal mysteries is emphasized in numerous passages (Romans 16:25-26; Ephesians 1:9; 3:3-4, 9). Faithful stewardship of the mysteries of God involves speaking about them: "But we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom, which God predestined before the ages to our glory" (1 Corinthians 2:7; cf. Ephesians 6:19). Paul speaks of the mystery of resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:51, the mystery of God's will (Ephesians 1:9), the mystery of Christ's union with his church (Ephesians 5:32; Colossians 1:27), the mystery of lawlessness (2 Thessalonians 2:7), the mystery of the faith (1 Timothy 3:9) and the mystery of godliness (1 Timothy 3:16). At the heart of God's mysteries is the mystery of mysteries - the mystery of Christ (Ephesians 3:3-4; Colossians 2:2; 4:3).

The writer of Revelation speaks of the climax of God's redemptive purposes as the moment when "the mystery of God is finished" (Revelation 10:7).

Embracing Mystery

Certainly, mystery is a prominent theme in Holy Scripture. We are surrounded by, immersed in, and indwelt by mystery. We are called to be faithful stewards of the mysteries of God. The Apostles received the mysteries, giving them to the church, so that we might preserve, protect, and proclaim them to the world. This distinguishes Christian truth from the mystery cults of Paul's day. The mystery cults reserved their secrets for committed initiates. The church proclaims the mysteries of God to all, without reservation. If we are to truly know God and remain faithful to the stewardship we have been given, we must recover mystery as a central element of Christian proclamation and practice. In order to do this, we must fully embrace mystery (or, better yet, allow ourselves to be embraced by mystery) by surrendering control of our lives to mystery - both ideologically and practically.

First, we embrace mystery by putting reason in its place - as a servant to mystery. We must allow mystery to topple the idol of rationalism - the reduction of reality to what one can describe and explain. By giving reason preeminence over revelation we end up discarding mystery, explaining it away, exchanging it for what "makes sense" rather than what requires faith. When mystery is not embraced by faith, but explained away, we fail to truly encounter the living God. Instead, we simply experience our own idea of God. We must heed the warning from Gregory of Nyssa, "Every concept formed by the intellect in an attempt to comprehend and circumscribe the divine nature can succeed only in fashioning an idol, not in making God known."

God's mysteries are bigger than the mind. They cannot be confined to the human intellect. Mystery is not removed by more information. The more knowledge we possess, the deeper the mystery. For this reason, all human theological systems, no matter how well-crafted, fall short of reality. Since systems inherently simplify, they always reduce, and thus distort reality. This does not mean we should abandon the attempt to construct concise and coherent theological systems. It simply means we should be careful to keep them in proper perspective. They are simply windows to reality, never the reality itself. Because they are windows, they give a true - but never the total - perspective.

Douglas John Hall puts it well: "In our theoretical attempts to account for and order existence - in other words, in our ideologies - we human beings regularly truncate, simplify, or falsify reality. Life is always more mysterious and less manageable than our theories about life - including our religious theories and systems of theology."[7] Lord Alfred Tennyson states this truth poetically:

Our little systems have their day
They have their day and cease to be
They are but broken strands of thee
And thou O Lord art more than they.

We are called to worship, wonder, and proclaim mystery. We are not called to explain mystery for one simple reason - mystery resists explanation. Further insight does not remove, but adds to, the mystery. The infinite God cannot be contained in our finite minds. God is always greater than our greatest thought. There is always more going on than we can see or get our minds around. We must not pretend to be able to explain everything about God. We must leave room for God's "godness." To lose mystery is to lose wonder, reverence, and worship. A God that can be fully explained is hardly a God worth worshipping!

We must be willing to be embraced by mystery itself. "It is not for us to use the power of mystery, but for us to be used by it. We cannot embrace it in our arms, it embraces us. We cannot capture it but are captured by it."[8] We must strive to embrace mystery rather than fight against mystery by explaining it away. The only proper stance toward mystery is to receive it.

Since mystery is never exhausted, we must remain open to mystery all our lives. Only in this way can we know true peace of mind, real intellectual rest. By embracing mystery, we - like children - trust when we cannot explain. We receive by faith alone what we could never discover by reason alone. We know enough to know that we do not know. For mystery itself, paradoxically, is a way of knowing yet not knowing.

Second, we embrace mystery by surrendering control of our lives. Mystery cannot be controlled, only surrendered to. Pastors are not paid to remove mystery, but to steward it. When religion becomes a means to the end of control, then control has become an idol. This is always a temptation, because it is much easier to control and manage solutions than it is to experience mystery. "It takes considerable humility to embrace this mystery, for in the presence of mystery we are not in a position to control anything, to predict or manage, to pose as authorities, to, as we say, 'master the subject.'"[9]

The Christian faith is a dangerous faith. Christians claim to be engaged in participating in the most profound mysteries of the universe - Trinity, incarnation, and personal union with God's Spirit. We should not expect this experience to be simplistic, easily explained, or even comfortable. The God we serve is not a "tame God" - something C. S. Lewis loved to keep at the forefront of our attention, as exemplified in the discussion between Lucy and Mr. Beaver about Aslan - the Christ-figure in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe:

Is - is he a man?" asked Lucy.

"Aslan a man!" said Mr Beaver sternly. "Certainly not. I tell you he is the king of the wood and son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. Don't you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion - the lion, the great Lion."

"Ooh!" said Susan, "I'd thought he was a man. Is he - quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion."

"That you will, dearie, and no mistake," said Mrs Beaver. "If there is anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most or else just plain silly."

"Then he isn't safe?" said Lucy.

"Safe?" said Mr Beaver, "don't you know what Mrs Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King I tell you."

God is holy - transcendently terrifying, and terrifyingly transcendent. God's holiness is repelling yet alluring, repulsive and attractive, shocking and beautiful. God is both great and good - to be feared, to be loved!

Kenneth Graham provides a classic example of this tremendous mystery in his book, The Wind in the Willows at the point when Mole and Rat have an encounter with the divine Piper at the Gates of Dawn:

Suddenly, the Mole felt a great awe fall upon him, an awe that turned his muscles to water and bowed his head and rooted his feet to the ground. It was no panic terror. Indeed he felt wonderfully at peace and happy. But it was an awe that smote him and held him. He raised his humble head and then in the utter clearness of the eminent Dawn, he looked into the very eyes of his Friend and Helper. And as he looked, he lived. And still as he lived, he wondered. "Rat . . . Rat," he found breath to whisper, shaking, "Are you afraid?"

"Afraid?" murmured the Rat, his eyes shining with unutterable love. "Afraid? Of Him? Oh, never, never. And yet, and yet . . . oh Mole, I am afraid."

And then the two animals, crouching to the earth, bowed their heads and did worship.

Faith is a wild adventure, a thrilling journey. The presence of mystery, which only deepens upon every reflection, guarantees that the future will never be boring or predictable. Our reflection on mystery will never end. Even in the presence of the greatest mystery of all - the Holy Trinity - the mystery will remain! We will spend eternity gazing and learning, wondering, worshiping, being awed, astonished and astounded. It is no wonder that worship and praise is a significant part of the life of heaven!

© Richard J. Vincent, 2004