Mysteries.

We live in a world where the mysterious is avoided. We must have everything figured out. Yet, it is mysteries that drive us into new territories. Discovery broadens our ability to communicate more effectively. Children love discovery, adults hate it. So here is a mystery for you. Consider the following:

Eleven men, frightened for their lives, are huddled in a room, doors securely locked and bolted, windows boarded up to keep prying eyes from determining their whereabouts. Emotions are reeling as they try to come to grips with the publicly displayed, politically sanctioned death of their friend just three days prior. Concern for their safety in a city where they are only visitors is their main dilemma as they know how any movement to leave the city will mean their imprisonment and potential death.

As they express their fears and anger towards one another and to the governing forces who are looking for them, their friend, the one who was murdered, suddenly appears before them and exclaims, “Peace.” This is not an aberration of their collective grief-stricken thoughts. This is flesh and bones, poke-a-finger-here-to-test-the-fact reality no one expects. It’s a mystery!

Ok, what you just read is the encounter of the disciples with Jesus, in case you didn’t recognize it. So for a moment, put yourself in that same room, feeling the exact same emotions and experiencing the exact same response of seeing Jesus, who you saw die and be buried just three days prior. Understand, everything you’ve ever been taught by churchianity, hasn’t been developed yet. You’re catching and processing this moment first hand.

So how many of you think that when this event occurred, in the ensuing pandemonium which it unleashed, someone shouted out, “All right now. Let’s be adults here. Calm down.”? Not many of you, right? However, it would appear that this is precisely what happened simply because we have no record of the most important discovery question every child would have asked: Why and how did this happen?

You might be thinking right now I must be sorely mistaken, you’ve got a whole book which tells you, and anyone else who will take the time to read it, why and how it happened. I, cordially, would have to disagree with you on this. What you possess in your book is an attempt by many authors to explain a mystery. Furthermore, you also draw on “attempted traditions” passed down through history to explain a mystery. In trying to be an adult with the assurance that you understand things, you, and I must include myself, have accepted these traditional attempts of explanation to make us feel certain about this mystery.

Over the past several months I have been in a very intense study on this question. Nowhere in any of the gospels, Paul’s writings, the author of Hebrews, or in John’s works do we find an answer to this mystery. Before you jump to a conclusion here understand something: What we have are metaphors that try to get us to relate to an unexplainable situation in some capacity in order to soothe our angst for an explanation. Those recorded metaphors came from the daily dialogue of the people during that period. We don’t possess the exact same understanding of those metaphors today even though we think we do. Our “attempted traditions” have compromised the essence of the original metaphors.

Go into the gospels and look for the question, or better yet, the response to the question from Jesus himself. It’s not there. (This is a mystery in and of itself.) Consider though, how Jesus instructed the disciples how they need to approach the kingdom of God as a little child. Children will ask the questions and every parent knows this. Kids also will not ask and instead trust in the parent’s cares for them. Is it possible that the singularly most important question is not recorded purely as a means to demonstrate our trust in such a great love? Do all the explanations we have simply demonstrate the grown-up response to a mystery which we all as children are called to discover? Have you calmed down in the kingdom of God or does the singularly most important question still pull on your heart?

If you look in the book of Ephesians, you’ll find a claim how the marriage relationship between a man and a woman is a mystery. This is the same with our relationship to Christ. “How and why is this possible” becomes a metaphor in our conversation with the Godhead only as we enter into the relationship. Our metaphor will not fit on someone else just as a marriage can’t be the same by adding a third person to the union. (Notice the use of the metaphor!) Unfortunately, all across the globe, people believe, or better yet, are certain, these recorded metaphors of a relationship with Christ are the “be all and end all” of the discussion. They have grown up in Christ!

In my studies I am becoming ever more aware of this glaring reality of how we don’t know anything but are damn good at faking it as though we do. Some of you upon reading this will assume that I don’t know a damn about this matter as I have presented it, to which I’ll wholly agree. You see I’m still seeking, searching, entertaining the question as a child. I can’t admit to being a grown up to a mystery which still draws me ever deeper into a divine relationship. Being certain just isn’t worth the loss of exploring the wonder and the awe.