Christians routinely use the word “mystery” when explaining the faith. Often times when a believer has difficulty explaining a teaching, she too quickly surrenders, “Well, it’s a mystery,” or the most condemning statement, “You just have to believe.”
For sure, it is a mystery as to how God does some things. It’s a mystery as to how God can be three persons, yet one God. It’s as mystery as to why I was raised in Michigan and not Indonesia. God does not and has not told us everything. But we default to this mystery answer way too much! The faith is not supposed to be a mystery. In fact, preaching the Gospel is the unveiling of the mystery! John writes in his gospel, “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.”
Paul also declares:
“When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” Ephesians 3:4, 5
Overall, preaching Christ is the unveiling of the mystery of God! That’s the Gospel. It is no longer unknown what God thinks of you. He loves you. It is no longer unknown why you exist, what your purpose is, what your future is. God made you. He saved you through Christ. You will survive and even rise from the dead. His heart and will toward you is not hidden, but extraordinarily clear. As clear as a man bleeding on a cross, buried in a tomb and risen from the dead. Christianity is NOT a mystery religion. It is the end of all mysteries! The Church exists to make KNOWN what was once a mystery.
Human beings, even those who know Christ, are naturally bent at putting God back up in the heavens behind the clouds. Throughout history the church has slipped into making God mysterious even to its own people. The reformation’s motivation was to destroy this false veiling of God that had occurred in the medieval church.
Still, I have a number of friends who argue that a traditional or historic or liturgical worship service invokes a much-needed sense of mystery and wonder that seems to be missing from mega-churchy contemporary services which are popular in America. They tell me that the albs, chanting, sitting and standing, and incense mark the time and space as very different than most people’s day to day lives. It is true that something “unusual” is happening in the divine service. Heaven meets earth in the preaching of the word and the presence of Christ in bread and wine.
Yet, He did it in a plain ol’ dirty manger. Heaven met earth in an ordinary looking guy hanging on a cross between two ordinary looking thieves. The incarnation, the presence of God in our world, is not as glorious on the outside as we would imagine. But looks like naked feet walking across the mud. It looks like plain hands getting a drink from a shunned woman. It looks like mud rubbed in a blind man’s eyes.
For sure, man needs to humble himself before the Almighty God. He needs to learn that he is not God. Yet ultimately the whole point of the worship service is not to keep God mysterious. It is to unveil the mystery. Everything that happens in a worship service should be for the unveiling of the mystery of God to the people! It should not be about putting God back in His heavens.
Jesus says, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables.” Jesus gives the secret of the kingdom of God in the worship service as people come to clearly understand their sins and their forgiveness through the preached Word and the reception of communion.
Paul says in the first chapter of Colossians, “which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints.”
A pastor and church’s number one goal for every single worship service is to make known the Word of God. It is not to invoke some sense of mystery. The sole purpose of everything that happens in the worship service is to edify and make clear the Word of God, to break down the mystery, to encounter God in a manger, on the well worn road to Emmaus, at the cross.
