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Behold, the Mystery of Faith:
Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.
When we say these words, we are confessing that we don't have it figured out.
Embrace the Mystery.
My biggest concern is that I will always reject the mystery of the skies by staring at the pavement and getting lost in the concrete nature of it all.
Sure, incarnation is flesh, but it is equally mystery.
What does one do with the unexplained? The unexplained, the unanswered questions, leave us dry and hurting. Spinning our wheels. The rejection, the betrayal we feel. The end of one kind of life. The clear "No." The voices of judgment that ring so loudly in our head with the fiery voice of Satan.
Recently, I was kicked to the curb. The end of a dream. Broken relationships. Recognition of my own sin and my own culpability in the hurt of God's community, of God's world. What St. Paul or St. John might call "sins" with a lower case s, extensions of the greater "Sin," that is, unbelief.
Acting in unbelief. Wounding God's people. Wounding myself. Sin. sins.
Forgiveness, reconciliation, reparation. All things that do not take time for our sacred Lord. These things, you will find, DO take time for human people.
And in all of the dirty, raw, bloody, sinful fleshiness of it all, Christ is present.
It was the Evangelical community of my childhood that taught me to deeply love the Christian Scriptures and God. It was the Lutheran community that taught me to deeply love Christ, his Gospel, and gave me the theological foundation to live and proclaim Christ to the broken world.
But, admittedly, neither of these communities gave me language or insight enough to deeply love the Mystery of Faith.
My brother-in-law, a wise, gentle soul named Kyle, has talked with me about mystery. We sat at my dining room table in Philadelphia and talked about mystery and its powerful, haunting, and grace-filled reality in our lives. What Kyle helps me to see is that there is GRACE in mystery. There is GOSPEL in mystery.
Mystery often makes me feel abandoned by God.
My recognition of the mystery often comes along, unfortunately, after I have been hurt or after I have hurt someone else, when some crisis has arisen, or when something has just gone horribly wrong in my life or in the lives of those I love.
As Brennan Manning (RIP) will remind us, "All is grace. If the things we do and say are not rooted in the grace of Jesus then all we have is a bunch of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
Sound + Fury = Nothing.
The grace comes in. It is is non-formulaic and it is shrouded in Mystery, BUT, not just in any mystery...this isn't Sherlock Holmes.
This Mystery is the Mystery of Faith. It is the Mystery in the breaking of the bread, the gulp of wine, and in the splash of water.
It is the Mystery in the forgiveness offered to you when you know you are a total shit and you don't deserve it.
It is the Mystery of the rich, liturgical numinous.
It is the Mystery as your beautiful wife, Cari, stands at your side on your wedding day and speaks the deepest love and grace you have ever experienced into your frightened, ashamed, broken heart. It is the Grace of Christ, making us whole again.
It is the Mystery of unexplained things. The beauty of creation. The chill of fall.
Young people have visions.
Old people dream dreams.
I am leaving the Lutheran community, just as I left the evangelical community of my childhood. I will recover. But it will take time.
In the meantime, I will wear my Episcopal Service Cross, love my wife, and embrace the Mystery.
