Bright Spot: Sometimes, it's best to leave everything a mystery
Who doesn’t love a good mystery? Clues sprinkled sparsely. Powers of observation given a workout. Those with an attention deficit (most of us) will be challenged by any good who-done-it. Our IQs will be tested.
But a lot of people can’t get into the mysteries, paradoxes, ambiguities and uncertainties of the spiritual realm. It seems like so many, especially conservatives theologically, want everything nailed down. Airtight. Absolute certainty!
Yet logically the latter is impossible. To know anything with absolute certainty you’d have to be God. And absolute certainty is what conservative Bible readers often use to poke holes in atheistic thinking.
Atheists say there is no God. But to say that one would have to examine every corner of the universe. The James Webb telescope has shown that to be a bit of a challenge due to the vastness of the universe … trillions of light years wide, long and deep … at least. Only God could see every corner. The God they don’t believe in.
As sociologist and novelist Andrew Greeley famously warned: “If one wishes to eliminate uncertainty, tension, confusion and disorder from one’s life, there is no point in getting mixed up with either Yahweh or with Jesus of Nazareth.” Quaker philosopher and prolific author, Elton Trueblood agreed: “Even our intellectual questions are increased by the acceptance of a strong religious faith … If a man wishes to avoid the disturbing effect of paradoxes, the best advice is for him to leave the Christian faith alone.”
My favorite Christian author, Phillip Yancey penned: “… living faith involves much dynamic tension. Throughout church history, Christian leaders have shown an impulse to pin everything down, to reduce behavior and doctrine to absolutes … I do not find this tendency in the Bible … instead [Christian thinker and author] G.K. Chesterton said, ‘Christianity got over the difficulty of combining furious opposites, by keeping them both, and keeping them furious.”
He goes on to illustrate some of those furious opposites – the fact Jesus was 100% God and 100% man, God’s sovereignty and man’s free will, we are saved apart from works but faith without works is dead, the first shall be last and the last first, find your life by losing it, the Kingdom of God is within you but not yet, the way up is down, the servant is the greatest, the Bible was written by man but authored by God, where sin abounds grace abounds more. Renowned British pastor, Charles Simeon, agreed: “Truth is not in the middle, and not in one extreme, but in both extremes.” Yancey lamented: “With some reluctance I have come to agree.” Famed pastor of yesteryear humorously pointed out in a discussion of God’s sovereignty versus man’s free will and how he reconciled those two seeming polar opposites: “I never try to reconcile friends.”
Mary “pondered in her heart” (Luke 2:19) the tension of birthing the Savior of the world when she was still a virgin. The word used for “ponder” in the original language of the Bible means “to carry the tension, not eliminate it.”
To paraphrase one of Jack Nicholson’s most famous movie lines: Most of us can’t handle the truth of the tension of these mysteries. Growing in our love for the Lord will help us deal with the mysteries of God ... and of life ... and help us enjoy a good mystery.
Rick Sams is pastor emeritus of Alliance Friends Church.
This article originally appeared on The Alliance Review: Bright Spot: Sometimes, it's best to leave everything a mystery
