Embracing the King of Mystery

As I read scripture, particularly the Psalms, I impressed by the immensity of God. He is the creator. He is the Holy One. He is the giver and sustainer of life. He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. The mountains melt like wax before Him. He wraps Himself in light as a garment. He is great beyond imagining. As high as the heavens are above the earth so are His thoughts higher than ours and His ways higher than ours. There is no one who knows the mind of God. There is no one who can lay a hand on Him and bring Him to court. He is exalted and majestic. He is the uncreated one, eternally existent and entirely self-sufficient in Himself. He is the one and only possessor of all wisdom, knowledge, power, and glory. We are like dust before Him. We are all together like dust on the scales before the greatness of God.

When I am struck by this, I am in awe of Him. I am impressed not only by His greatness, but by my smallness. I am moved to wonder that we understand anything at all. I am dumbstruck by the mysteries that He has revealed and by those that remain hidden. Those that have been revealed are somewhat clear to us, but no less impressive or mind numbing in their enormity. Jesus Christ is such a mystery. The reality of Christ was shrouded in mystery and those saints who went before us longed to look into the mystery of Christ. God, in His perfect timing revealed the mystery and we now look back on it as staggering, overwhelming, too crazy to have been imagined by the mind of man, but fact. The birth, life, death, and resurrection of Christ and the implications of these for mankind are so obvious to us now. We look back and wonder at how clear are the prophecies and how marvelous their fulfillment. But no one at the time understood it. Not one school of thought or group of believers among the people of God rightly understood. Some of them knew where He would be born. Some understood some elements of His ministry. Even Satan understood some of the prophecies related to His life and work. But no one understood the mystery of Christ. The Pharisees and Sadducees studied the scriptures and were confident in their assertions. They were scholars of the Word, but even they missed it. Although they diligently studied the scriptures they missed the mystery of Christ, even when He was standing right in front of them.

When I reflect on this I have to stop and wonder at what mysteries remain hidden from us today. We have our own schools of thought, our own theological systems, but what are we missing? What mysteries have we reduced, what paradoxes have we confidently straightened out, only to miss the Christ standing among us? We create systems of thought and teach our systems to others with such confidence that soon the systems have trumped the reality. Our studies can actually become sources of pride. Knowledge puffs up. We construct and defend our systems and find our identity in the church, organization, denomination, or theological system to which we adhere, but isn’t all this misplaced and prideful?

Diligent study of the scriptures is not the problem. I believe in the Scriptures and that we should, nay must, diligently study them. The problem is that we forget that the purpose of the Scriptures is to testify about, and lead us to, Christ, yet we refuse to come to Him to have life. Christ is still a mystery. He is a person not a system. He is free and terrifyingly powerful. His ways are still higher than ours. We need not understand or explain the mysteries, but rather to embrace our mysterious and loving Lord. We have to allow the paradoxes to stand and to allow God to reveal His mysteries in His time. So often we are distracted from the real work of knowing and doing His will by petty infighting about our systems and structures. We ought rather to allow the tension of the paradoxes to drive us to Christ and to allow Him to be our Savior and Lord. We ought to be about the Kings business. Some of us will be scientists and scholars, but the work of those is not to detract from the mysteries, but rather to more clearly lay them before us so that we might all marvel at the glory of our King. The mysteries we understand or the answers we theorize about should compel us to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our King.