November 13, 2011 Youth Sunday:
“The Mystery Box”
by: Erik Brummett
I enjoy a good mystery, one that makes you really think, really put the pieces together, really wrestle with it. I delight when mystery pulls you into the story and you almost feel like a character. I really like it when there’s a twist ending, they are so fun because the mystery keeps on going. I guess that’s why I don’t like it when the mystery is solved, it’s just over, it’s ended, it’s gone. No more questions, no more figuring out the answers, no more mystery.
But a great mystery, even though it’s over and been solved, will leave you with unanswered questions, letting you figure out the answers with others, drafting theories, and looking for the smallest clues and hints as to what’s really going on.
It’s why I am so passionate about the TV show LOST, why I gravitate towards Batman more than Superman, why I enjoy the work of theology, and why I ultimately became a Christian.
For the Christian, life revolves around mystery and revelation. God is completely mysterious to us, but has been made known to us in Jesus Christ. We can know God, but we can’t fully know God. We can know Jesus, but we can’t fully know Jesus. There is this pendulum swinging back and forth between God revealed to us and God as mystery to. And both are fascinating. God’s revelation brings us salvation and redemption. God’s mystery causes awe and wonder. Having a deep, close relationship with God means that we live in mystery and at the same time live in revelation.
Mystery is something that I think is truly undefinable. It’s possible to label things as mysterious or say this person is mysterious, but I don’t know if anyone can really say what mystery is. We recognize it as the unknown and the unseen. It is secret, something that cannot be understood or explained. And that is why revelation is important because revelation explains the mystery, but never fully explains the mystery. We know that we have received salvation, but can we fully explain what salvation is or how it works. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:12, “Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.” We can only understand the mystery in part right now, but at some later time, we will understand it fully.
I think that we need to embrace the mystery of God, the mystery that we live in. I think that only when we embrace the mystery can we actually respect and understand it. It sounds ironic to say that to understand the mystery, we must embrace it. But much like many things in the world, the only we get to know them and understand them is to draw close to them. By understanding it, I don’t mean that we should try to solve it. If we try to solve the mystery, we will only fail, we will be led astray, and into petty debates over theology. To understand the mystery means that we accept it as real and present, live with it, dance with it, let it take you places. When we embrace the mystery of God and all that it encompasses, it takes us into a new way of being where everything encapsulates us, where we see God’s creation as God’s creation, where we see the beauty of all things. The mystery of God invites us on an adventure.
When I think of how the mystery of God confronts us, I think of the scene from The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, the first book and film of The Chronicles of Narnia in which Lucy Pevinsey walks into the attic, hiding from her brother. As she walks in, she is greeted by a monstrous wardrobe. She is captivated by it, it is as if the wardrobe is calling her name. Little does she know as she prepares to enter the wardrobe, that she will be transported to a magical world of fantastic creatures, where good and evil battle it out, a world in which the king of Narnia, Aslan, has been surprisingly waiting for the Pevinsey children to arrive. I think that if any one of us were to see that wardrobe, we too would be captivated by it, not only because of its immense size, but because for Lucy, her sister and brothers, and for us, the wardrobe holds infinite possibility, it holds the power of mystery within.
J.J. Abrams, creator of hit television shows, Alias and LOST, knows the power that mystery holds over the human race. As a teenager, J.J.’s grandpa took him to a magic shop in NYC where he purchased something called Tannen’s Magic Mystery Box. As you can imagine, it was a box full of magic tricks, but the interesting thing is that while most children would have opened theirs, J.J. never opened his. It sits on his desk in his office, where it serves as a reminder of infinite possibility, of mystery.
I share this with you because I believe that we are surrounded by numerous mystery boxes, the visible and the invisible. One example is the Bible. The Bible holds within it the story of God, the story of God’s people, and the story of us. Within these stories, we get glimpses of who God is and who we are. But the cool thing about this book is that no matter how many times you read it, no matter how many verses you have memorized, every time you open it, you will be surprised. You will learn something you hadn’t learned before, perhaps from a passage you know by heart. The Bible is a mystery box because it holds infinite possibilities. As Forrest Gump would say, “You never know what you gonna get.” Another mystery box we have is this sanctuary, God’s house. There are the steady, constant things in here such as the bricks, pews, and this pulpit. But you don’t come here for the bricks, you come here to meet God, to worship God. And each time is a brand new experience, a brand new lesson, a brand new encounter. This sanctuary holds infinite possibilities.
You know, for me this curtain represents a mystery box. I look at the curtain behind the altar and I wonder what’s behind it. I know there’s probably some wires and a big ladder, but that’s about it. So, I look at this curtain and I wonder what’s behind there, what does it represent, what does it mean? And in my mind, I’m thinking it stands for the curtain that separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the temple. And then I think I want to rip it in half because we are not separated from God, because the curtain was torn. But I don’t because it captures my attention, it gets me thinking, it gets me imagining. So, really it represents the mystery of God as it causes me to reflect on the curtain tearing, my own relationship with God, and how because of Jesus, I can know and approach God. We can all know and approach God because Jesus was and is the revelation of God’s mystery for us.
And that’s what Paul is telling us in the passage from Colossians, that even though God is mystery, through Jesus, we can know God and understand it. In verses 25 and 26, Paul claims that he became the servant of God to make the word of God known. He says he endeavors to make known “the mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages and generations.” The mystery that has been hidden for so long is that salvation is intended for all humanity. If salvation is intended for all, then Jesus died for all, which I think is a mystery that we have today, not of God’s doing, but our own. I think the church likes to hide the mystery, I feel like sometimes we have a monopoly on Jesus’ death, deciding who Jesus died for and who he didn’t. However, that is not how it works. Jesus died for all, salvation is for all, that was the mystery, but not anymore because it has been revealed. This mystery had been made known to the apostles and through them, made known to all the saints or believers. It is up to us, as followers of Christ to continue sharing the revelation of the mystery that Christ died for all so that all may have salvation. In this mystery, there is another. In the salvation that Christ offers there lies value, worth, and glory. The glory of God is tied up in the salvation. In the mystery that Christ reveals, two things are happening, people are being saved and God is being glorified quite extravagantly as this mystery is great and vastly rich in God’s glory. Paul was astounded by this mystery that salvation was for all. In his commentary on Colossians 1, Albert Barnes says this,
“The meaning is, that the whole of that truth, so full of glory, and so rich and elevated in its effect, is summed up in this - that Christ is revealed among you as the source of the hope of glory in a better world. This was the great truth which so animated the heart and fired the zeal of the apostle Paul. The wonderful announcement had burst on his mind like a flood of day, that the offer of salvation was not to be confined, as he had once supposed, to the Jewish people, but that all men were now placed on a level; that they had a common Savior; that the same heaven was now opened for all, and that there were none so degraded and vile that they might not have the offer of life as well as others. This great truth Paul burned to communicate to the whole world…”
Paul understood the mystery and saw in it profound, life-changing, beauty-enhancing power.
This mystery, that all should receive salvation, is made perfectly known through the death of Jesus on a cross and his resurrection from the grave. When we look at an image of a cross or the crucifixion, what do we see? We see a man dying, we see salvation, a symbol of redemption, a symbol of freedom, a symbol of love. In thinking about mystery and the mystery of God and writing this sermon, I began to look at the cross as a symbol of something else. I began to look at the cross as a symbol of mystery. I began to look at the cross as a symbol of infinite possibilities. Because it is the cross in which the mystery that had been hidden for so long was made known. While we can certainly say that people receive salvation through Jesus, each person will receive it in a unique manner. It will mean something different to everybody. It is a personal matter between God and the person. And because of that, the cross holds infinite possibilities. It is a mystery because while we know what it provides, we do not know how it works. Sure we can say that God is all-powerful and all-loving, so that’s how it works. And maybe that’s the real mystery, because when it comes to really, wholly comprehending God, we have only walked into the shallow end of a pool that is eternally deep. Do we really know what it means to say that God is all-loving or all-powerful? No! How can we? We are not all loving or all powerful. We are extremely limited in these capacities. There will always be someone who has more power than us or loves better than us, but there will always be someone more powerful than them or love better than them. But there is nobody above God! Nobody more powerful and nobody more loving. There is a reason that God tells John in Revelation that He is the beginning and the end. There is no one before or after him and certainly no one above him.
Maybe that’s the beauty, the power, and true mystery of the cross and salvation. That the most powerful being in all of the universe chose to die for the people of this little marble.
You know the more I think about the awesomeness the less I understand it. This is a mystery that I cannot solve nor should I want to. Because then it’s not a mystery anymore, it will have lost its power and fascination.
A few minutes ago, I mentioned Lucy and the wardrobe and how the wardrobe represented ultimate mystery and infinite possibility. Deeper into the land of Narnia lies a stone table that represents even greater mystery. Lucy’s brother, Edmund, had been influenced by the White Witch and betrayed his sisters and brother to her. He was taken prisoner and later rescued by the forces of Aslan’s army. Upon this discovery, the White Witch demanded an audience with Aslan, claiming that Edmund’s traitorous blood belonged to her. Aslan intervened offering up his life to save Edmunds. At the appointed time, Aslan was led to the stone table where he was tied down, his mane shaved, and stabbed with a stone blade, killing him. All hope is lost, as the two Pevinsey sisters believe, but something strange happens as they console each other, the stone table breaks in two with Aslan’s body missing. In a stupor, they think the White Witch has done something. But the horizon lights up and in the archway there stands Aslan, alive again. As you could imagine, the two sisters were astounded and share with Aslan that they thought he was dead. This is where it gets really cool. Aslan tells them, “If the Witch knew the true meaning of sacrifice, she might have interpreted the deep magic differently. That when a willing victim who has committed no treachery, is killed in a traitor's stead, the stone table will crack, and even death itself would turn backwards.”
Seeing that kind of stuff gets me excited. But the line that stands out to me most is that if the witch knew the true meaning of sacrifice, she would have interpreted the deep magic differently. In other words, she would have understood the mystery as it was meant to be understood.
That’s what happened on the cross, the Jewish Pharisees and Sadducees and the Romans thought they did it. They thought that they had gotten rid of that trouble-making punk, Jesus. He’s dead, nothing else can happen. We can get on with our lives, finally. But if they would have listened to Jesus, if they would have understood what he was saying and they mystery he was revealing, they would have seen what was coming, they would have known that their plans would fail. When Jesus, a willing victim, who committed no sin and did nothing wrong, was killed in the stead of sinners, us, the curtain was torn, and death itself turned backwards.
No wonder Paul was so excited about this mystery. That is just mind-blowing crazy. But it’s true, it’s real, it happened and still happen. The cross, Jesus, salvation transcend and exist outside of time. Jesus got up on that cross so that all people of all countries of all times could receive salvation and know God.
I am sure many of you have been wondering what’s up with these boxes. These boxes are mystery boxes. They contain infinite possibility. We don’t know what’s in them or even if there is anything in them. We are left in constant wonder, constant pondering. They invite us to think. They tell us to use our imagination. So what’s inside these boxes. As you can see, nothing. But that doesn’t mean there’s actually nothing in there. There’s air, molecules, germs, all sorts of little life forms, but there is still infinite possibility in there. Because these boxes could be used innumerous things. You could use them to pack, as a bookshelf, r as a fort. And in their openness, they represent mystery revealed. We can see in them and we can understand the inside of boxes. The closed boxes represented that mystery hidden for ages. The opened boxes represent God’s plan revealed to us all, that Jesus died for all, that salvation is for all.
A final question remains: what do we do with this mystery?
We embrace the mystery, we accept mystery as part of being a Christian. We share the mystery with others. We allow mystery to open our eyes. We let mystery show us the beauty around us. We allow mystery to lead us on an adventure with God. The box is opened, the stone table broken, the mystery made known. Embrace the mystery so that you may embrace the revelation.
As the next song plays, listen to the words and allow yourselves to see the mystery all around us.