Mystery

Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. (I John 4:8)

When I was a young boy, my brothers and I had a vintage collection of Hardy Boys mystery books. I was a big fan, and I suppose I took to Frank and Joe Hardy’s adventures because I imagined that they were just regular kids like my brothers and I and all the other kids on our block back in the 50s and 60s, except for the fact they were always in some sort of thrilling situation that required their skillful sleuthing.

With titles such as “The Clock Ticked,” “The Mystery of Cabin Island,” and “The Clue of the Broken Blade,” Hardy Boys mysteries were pretty formulaic. Each chapter finished with a little cliffhanger that made you want to read the next, building to a somewhat surprising resolution tied up neatly by all the clues the boys had discovered and deciphered, followed by a happy ending that made you want to read the next installment.

The mysteries that baffle us in real life are not so easily resolved. “What is the meaning of my life,” “Why did this happen to me,” and “Why did I do to deserve this?” are mysteries many struggle to solve their whole lives through. Even with the most obvious of clues, the big mysteries of life are not answered as neatly as the Hardy Boys found.

One of the big mysteries—perhaps the biggest mystery of all—is the mysterious nature of God. Throughout my adult life, I have asked the same essential spiritual questions others have through the ages: “Who am I…who is God…and who am I in relation to God?” Throughout this journey, I have felt at times that I have “the answer,” only to be awakened to some new understanding of myself or the nature of God that shakes my certainty…and then I’m back to looking for clues to solve the mystery.

Scripture certainly provides many clues. Who is God? Well, John’s first letter plainly tells us that “God is love,” and that those who do not love do not know God. And yet why do many who profess to know God show such contempt for others who are different from themselves? Why do we separate ourselves into the spiritual “in” and “out” groups because someone prays differently, acts differently, votes differently…does anything differently than the way we believe they “should?”

I believe the scripture, “God is love.” My belief in that scripture and what it says about the nature of God is steadfast, yet my understandinghas broadened through my lifetime based on my experiences, my study, and my encounters with others.

The unfolding chapters of my life have led me to an understanding I have today, one that may make some who read uncomfortable: that I am a Christ-follower by choice because I’ve come to know that the humanity of Christ helps me to understand the divinity and mystery of God.

But I also am a Christ-follower by accident of birth because that is the tradition of my mother and father, and their parents before them, and the community into which I was born. Had my circumstances been different, would I have come to know God through Christ? And am I called to love anyone less whose circumstances led them down a different path…a path with as many twists, turns, and answers that lead to more questions as I have had?

Our world is a divided place. Lines are drawn and have been drawn in the sands of time over the ages, often in the name of God, as simple-minded human beings have understood God to be. Sometimes, people settle into one “answer to the mystery,” and—enjoying the comfort that comes with certainty—never allow themselves to consider that “God is love” is a bigger and more complex idea than they had ever imagined! Instead, they neatly resolve the mystery of God like a good Hardy Boys novel—satisfying, but perhaps best meant for a child.

I, for one, don’t want a “Hardy Boys” faith. I want my faith to grow as I grow. I want to fully understand who God intends for me to be, and who I am in relationship to God, who is love…a God who is continually being revealed in ways both plain and mysterious...through relationships, tragedies, joys, sorrows, music, art, compassion, the environment…and through one of the most mysterious choices God has made: to be revealed as a baby in a cattle stall.

How mysterious that the unimaginable, incomprehensible God we seek to understand would show up in the form of one so vulnerable, so utterly dependent on love, pure and simple, to survive!

Then again, maybe not so mysterious after all…

Prayer for Today: God, I do not completely understand all that you are, or all that you would have me to be. But I do know that you are love, and that I am to love others if I am to know you. Help me today to be more prone to love than to judge, to reach out rather than to exclude, and to show the love of Christ to the world today in all I say and do.

Scott Elliff, 2012