Mystery
Hidden things.
Joseph dreamed amazing dreams of a destiny too fantastic to believe.
Daniel used an uncanny gift to interpret the symbols of Kings' dreams; uncanny in his ability to interpret not just the dream but the dreamer.
We're not comfortable with the unknowable, are we Linus?
Campy 1960's B-budget sci-fi flicks. They tell on us. At each new level of technological advancement and scientific breakthrough, we puff out our chests. We think far too highly of our grasp of the universe and the macroverse and the microverse... In black and white, arrogant scientists in stylish suits makes boasts and blah blah blah in lecture hall style oration some developing theory now mocked among advanced scholarship.
But at the time...
I mean, it's science.
Theories. Hypotheses. Educated guesses.
Educated guesses never get it wrong, do they?
We're not comfortable with the unknowable.
What we don't know, we just make up as we go.
Call it an educated guess.
I'm not mocking science. I love science.
I'm mocking me.
Us.
As a philosopher and a theologian there is an uncomfortable proximity to mystery.
In dreams
In prophetic statements
In parables
we grope for the meaning of
life
faith
suffering
wrestling with our own angels on the other side of the Jabbok; contending with the mysterious
to grasp with an iron grip
the revelation of God's present and future activity;
present and future purpose;
plans
Something in our hands we can't explain
like the way God is saving us, even now.
Afraid of what we don't understand many are afraid to open their hands.
Grace is terrifying.
Why I need God's grace is creepy-crawly.
Am I really that guy? Deep down in the dark basement of my soul is the creeper capable of anything.
I don't claim him on my taxes but I know he's there.
Why God would gift grace to me is terrifying.
Unconditional love is always awkward.
Unexpected.
Strange.
What is God up to?
What will God do next?
What did God just put into my hands?
Grace?
Best thing we can do, Linus, is pass it along.
Fast as we can.
But let me tell you something wonderful, a mystery I’ll probably never fully understand. We’re not all going to die—but we are all going to be changed. You hear a blast to end all blasts from a trumpet,and in the time that you look up and blink your eyes—it’s over. On signal from that trumpet from heaven, the dead will be up and out of their graves, beyond the reach of death, never to die again. At the same moment and in the same way, we’ll all be changed. In the resurrection scheme of things, this has to happen: everything perishable taken off the shelvesand replaced by the imperishable, this mortal replaced by the immortal. Then the saying will come true: Death swallowed by triumphant Life! Who got the last word, oh, Death? Oh, Death, who’s afraid ofyou now? It was sin that made death so frighteningand law-code guilt that gave sin its leverage, its destructive power. But now in a single victorious stroke of Life, all three—sin, guilt, death—are gone, the gift of our Master, Jesus Christ.
Thank God!
~ 1 Corinthians 15:51-57, The Message
