The great truths of any faith are always a mystery. What do I mean by that? What is a mystery? I’m not thinking of Scooby Doo and the mystery machine, nor Sherlock Holmes or your favorite writer. Those are all mysteries that can be solved. A fact is hidden that the investigator can reveal by the end of the book or episode. No, the mystery of a faith is something that is already completely revealed. It has been revealed before the face of all people. The mystery of a faith is something that can be intuitively understood. It makes complete sense, and yet is non-sense. Our minds can’t really process it. Even though we might see it.
The sacraments are such mysteries. Water, bread and wine do amazing things. And we can see what they do in the lives of the faithful. But do we really understand how the Spirit hovers in those waters? Can we really grasp how we eat and drink the body and blood of Christ? We recognize the body of Christ. Comprehend is a different matter.
The greatest of these mysteries is the resurrection. We all have an intuitive grasp that death is a horror, an enemy, not natural. As much as the materialists of our generation want to say that death is a natural part of life, it isn’t. It’s part of the life of sinners. It is part of life in a cracked world. But death is not a rightful inhabitant. But how do sinners combat their just penalty? “For in Adam we all die.” (1 Corinthians 15:21). God in his great mercy has sent us a champion. “In Christ shall all be made alive.” (1 Corinthians 15:21).
Staring directly at the mystery is tough. Mysteries are singularity events. We can’t really penetrate them in themselves. How exactly God and man together is one Christ is the mystery of the incarnation. You can meditate on Christmas forever and not understand it. But it speaks to our souls. You can stare at the empty tomb and not understand. But it breathes hope.
Isaiah captures that hope so well. The promise of the new heavens and the new earth (Isaiah 65:17). For that is what the resurrection is, the first fruits of the new creation. And in the new creation, “the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.” It’s a common question about heaven “what about those who aren’t there?” Or, “what about fill in the blank of something that meant so much here?” They shall not come to mind. Why?
Isaiah’s answer I think is simply the reality of the resurrection shall turn this broken creation into Paul’s light momentary affliction. “I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people.” If God is glad, can we be anything but? “No more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress.” And Isaiah goes on to list things that are sadly too common – not mysteries at all in this world – that shall not happen in the new. “They shall not labor in vain or bear children for calamity (Isaiah 65:23).” The teacher of Ecclesiastes – all is vanity – shall be out of work. And the wolf and the lamb shall graze together.
We see the effects of the mystery. Even now we can see the mystery at work. Name another place outside the church that gathers together such different people. But what we see today is nothing compared to that day. The day that the last enemy is destroyed forever. Have a blessed Easter.
