I Love a Mystery

Alden Swan
December 7, 2004

I was raised in a culture that had a love-hate relationship with mystery. On one hand, we were consumed by a concept of rationalism and scientific investigation and refused to believe in anything that we couldn't take apart and understand. On the other hand, there remained a fascination with things beyond our understanding, hence the popularity of The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, The Exorcist, Close Encounters, and more.

Take UFOs, for instance: in the 60's, even before postmodernism and cable TV took over, talk of UFOs was everywhere. In spite of a prevailing sense that science could actually figure everything out and an increase in secular thinking, there was still this fascination with what was still unknown. My present theory is that when science threatened to expose mystery, people went looking for mystery elsewhere.

I know that I certainly had a fascination with the mysterious, spending a lot of time reading about UFOs, the Bermuda Triangle, and other tales of the. It was not that I enjoyed being frightened, because I never have. Rather, I think it was just an expression of the natural human hunger for mystery.

I don't really care about UFO's anymore, nor about the Bermuda Triangle (though I confess that I remain intrigued by a few things, like Area 51). It's not that anyone has solved any of these mysteries, or that my natural hunger for mystery has diminished. It's just that I have discovered the True Mystery, the Mystery of all mysteries. Once you have found True Mystery, you can stop caring about the Shroud of Turin or Biblical numerology or whether Noah's Ark is really on Mount Ararat.

For one thing, I have realized that these things don't really matter. Once, there was this thought that any of these mysteries could be proven one way or another, the answer would somehow change something. Well, I know now that this isn't true. Would finding Noah's Ark change anything? Not really. It wouldn't, for example, take away the need for faith, nor would proving that it isn't there remove any basis for faith. My faith isn't in any of these "lesser" mysteries; they are completely irrelevant to my spiritual state.

Furthermore, I find that I simply no longer find them interesting. The Gospel itself contains more than enough mystery to satisfy any hunger for mystery. Once you discovery True Mystery, it will overtake you and overwhelm you and not leave any room for any lesser mysteries, which we will find to really be just distractions.

I believe that we really do need mystery in our lives -- I think that this hunger for mystery was placed there by God (perhaps another dimension of our "God-shaped void"), and is specifically designed to latch on to the True Mystery of the Gospel. We long for that which is outside of us and larger than us, for someone whose ways are not our ways and whose thoughts are not our thoughts.

One of the problems (in my opinion) of the last several decades is that the church adopted the scientific method, applying it to theology and practice. It thought that somehow through study and reason and logic we could resolve mystery, and finally find answers. Then, supposedly, we could believe God based upon a rational understanding of the Gospel as opposed to merely blind faith. (I am reminded here of Jesus words to "Doubting" Thomas.) Much of the current end-times teaching, especially the myriad dispensational theories, is a perfect example of trying to eradicate mystery. This, as well as some other rationalism-based theologies, has resulted in a segment of the church that is dry and tasteless. I know -- I've experienced it first-hand.

"Behold, I tell you a mystery...," Paul says as he tells the Corinthians about how we are to be changed in the twinkling of an eye from the perishable into the imperishable. "I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery" Paul tells the Romans about the Gospel moving from Israel to the Gentiles. "This is a profound mystery" Paul tells the Ephesians about the relationship to Christ and the Church. Paul refers to the mystery in relationship to some aspect of the Gospel about 16 times in his letters, including a few references about the mystery of the Gospel that is now being revealed.

The more I learn, the more I think the whole bloomin' thing is a mystery, "for we know in part..." As I've said and written before, I think that applies across the board. We don't really know much of what we think we know. But for some reason we of the modern mindset think that we are supposed to have all the answers, and that to admit that some things are still a mystery is grounds for having our Modern Generation membership revoked.

So be it. The Age of Reason has failed us, and we really don't understand the real mysteries any more than they did a few hundred years ago - in fact, perhaps we understand them even less. How can the God-Creator of the universe love us enough to dwell among us? Now that's a mystery worth devoting some time to. Who cares about the Loch Ness monster? Life on Mars? Quarks and Quantum theory?

Interesting, yes. But I've got my arms around a real mystery - and it's captured my heart.

Oh, how I love a mystery.

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