Making Room For Mystery

God wanted to make known among the Gentiles the glorious wealth of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Colossians 1:27

“The kingdom of God is like this,” he said.  “A man scatters seed on the ground.  He sleeps and rises night and day; the seed sprouts and grows, although he doesn’t know how…”

Mark 4:26-27

These verses remind us that at the core of the Christian faith is mystery.  In one sense, mystery in Scripture speaks of something that God chose to keep hidden and has since made clear.  That’s Colossians 1:27.  Christ was revealed, and until He was revealed, no one would know and understand and experience the hope of glory.  But even since King Jesus has been revealed, there is still much about Him that is veiled, that remains mysterious.  This is simply because Jesus is infinite and eternal and holy, and we are not.  Imperfect, finite creatures simply cannot fully comprehend the One in whom the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.  There remains a mysterious quality about our Lord.  

The second verse speaks of the mystery of the kingdom of God.  No one quite knows how God’s sovereignty produces a crop.  No one knows how the Spirit moves this way and that to give life to the dead.  And yet, the kingdom has clearly come in the Son, and it is growing into that mustard seed tree that gives refuged to the birds of the air.  When the king comes on the clouds with his holy angels, every eye will see and acknowledge the kingdom of God, which is now a mysterious already/not yet phenomenon.  What we see has been clearly revealed to us by our great God.  We worship Him for giving us eyes to see.  

And yet, our infinitely wise and wonderful Father has not revealed everything to us.  We cannot explain how He operates in each and every instance.  We cannot explain how seemingly paradoxical biblical truths hang together in His mind without any compromise of His integrity.  We cannot fully explain why things like COVID-19 arise, because God is doing innumerably more through pandemics than our eyes and minds can see or comprehend.  

The danger comes when we think our line of sight is good enough to make absolutized statements about the way things are and about the way God operates.  That leaves no room for mystery, no room for nuance, no room for additional perspectives.  I believe this is often done with great intentions.  We want to speak for God and take a stand for truth.  And yet, we experience absolute truth through the mystery of life.  It doesn’t come neatly packaged for us.  For example:  How can suffering be God’s providential care?  How can two people full of integrity and the Holy Spirit arrive at differing perspectives on majorly significant issues?  

I’m convinced that the mystery that shrouds our God and the mysterious ways of the kingdom mean that we cannot claim to corner the market on truth nearly as often as we attempt to.  Not because absolute truth doesn’t exist, because it most certainly does.  But because we are so conditioned (in God’s wisdom) by our experience and context.  We simply can’t remove ourselves from the data we’re constantly receiving and have received our whole lives.  

This isn’t a denial of absolute truth.  Biblical truth is constant and unwavering because the Lord Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  And yet, my understanding of truth has changed over time because of my experiences and growing knowledge of God.  In many ways, I’ve come to hold things more loosely because I know others who are smarter than me conclude differently on many issues through honest and intense effort.  

This is the mystery that the church needs to embrace for the sake of unity.  It’s the humble posture of one who’s been with Jesus.  It’s the attitude of the one who will go to great lengths to remove the plank in his own eye before ever attempting to help a brother with the speck in theirs.  How damaging it would be to perform delicate surgery with a giant obstruction!  We’d do much more harm than good.  And yet, this is taking place all the time in a variety of ways with regards to a variety of very pressing and critical issues.  And we are by and large oblivious to the ways we are damaging one another in the name of “truth”…the very truth that we cannot fully comprehend and explain because we’re not God.  

May we be eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.  I’m convinced this requires us embracing the mystery that shrouds the kingdom.  Mystery requires a humble posture, a listening heart, a charitable tone…all things that are clearly revealed from our Bibles about how God’s people should act, because it resembles Jesus.  Let our hearts, attitudes, words, and actions reflect Him…the Spirit of Jesus will bring us into all truth…and not just us, but those who have yet to bend the knee will see Christ in us as we reflect His character.  

This doesn’t mean we shy away from truth, but neither does it mean we smother all perspectives not our own.  That’s not the way we learned Christ, and it isn’t the way we will bring others into His presence either.  

So maybe mystery means we spend less time beating our truth drums for the world to tune out…and more time demonstrating the humble, gracious posture of our King.