embrace the mystery

I think my favorite theme in the life of Christian apprenticeship is paradox, seemingly dichotomous instructions, characteristics, natures, outcomes. Of course, this is the nature of God and is evident before the age of Christianity. No doubt, you tire of this theme in my blog, but it is what fascinates me, drives me and pulls me on. You can probably google search my blog with key words related to this theme and find it evidently pervasive. Wonder, mystery, paradox, enigma.
Everything about the life of the apprentice is different than expected. It changes depending on how it is observed, on what is expected. You do the opposite of what you’d expect to accomplish a given outcome. But that sentence explains it just the opposite of how it really is. One doesn’t make himself last so that he will be first, he makes himself last because regards others as more important than himself. It is this humility that makes him first. But if one intentionally makes himself last so that he will be first, he is making himself first and therefore will be last. Yeah, I know, goofy strange loop.
I don’t always intentionally speak of these things. Paradox and mystery simply permeate my thinking. Even this week I spoke of life inverted, but in a different context.
So my Sunday morning musical messages these past weeks have dealt with mystery and paradox, and unexpected methods. Today I presented the fact that Jesus, throughout his ministry would say that it was not yet time for him to be glorified. I imagine his followers waiting for the day he’d taken over the government, expel the Romans and set things right, much in the way that we expect the Republicans to overturn legislation with which we don't agree, open the school day with prayer, and tack the ten commandments on the door of all the courthouses. But on his last night, he said it was time to be glorified, he prayed to this end and stood up walked out of the room and into the hands of his enemies and was killed. So much for glory right? Or perhaps that was his glory. Mystery. Paradox.
Back in the 0030s, AD, given the centuries of scriptures, and the recent teaching of Jesus, one would think that everyone would have seen everything coming. But in reality, those who were closest to the events and most prepared were caught completely off guard. It never plays out as we expect it. We can never anticipate anything in this life of apprenticeship. Only a few short years ago, I began to sense that a major challenge was coming my way. I was sure of it. Something was about to happen that would rock my world. Since in the corporate Christian world, blessing tends to be measured financially, and financial trials are about the only trials worthy of notice, I began to prepare myself emotionally for a turn of events that would leave us operating with meagre means. You can never anticipate how things will play out.
I am made to remember a sermon I heard about a year ago that was unpacking a series of events and exchanges between Jesus and his disciples. The whole thing had something to do with the boneheadedness of the disciples. Over and over, the rhetorical question was asked, how could they have been right there day after day watching it unfolding and still not get it? I kept thinking, each thing that unfolded was entirely new and foreign to them. Of all the people in all of history, I’d see them as the most likely not to get it. How much worse that after hindsight of 20 centuries and further knowledge of events and occurrences, and witnessing the misunderstanding of those around Jesus, we still don’t get it. We still misunderstand what he was saying. We get it all backward.
As Eugene Peterson notes, “We inhabit a mystery. We must not pretend to know too much."