Beamed Up Into Mystery

If all the scientific truth about the physical inter-workings of the universe was represented by your physical body, what we verifiably know would fit on one of your thumbnails. This means, of course, that we have no awareness of most of what we count on physically for sustainable life. Much of the truth of life is hidden from us. So much to learn, so little time!

As people of faith, acknowledging the spiritual realm, the same sort of ratio exists. The aspects of belief that we confess and ponder are a tiny sliver of the impenetrable mysteries that wait to be revealed. 

Just the Name, Jesus, represents wonders untold. It is a name rooted in the meaning “God saves, that is, heals.” The birth of Jesus, and his teaching, and healing contain inexhaustible life in the Spirit. His death and resurrection will never cease being explored, and the new will always emerge as we delve in.

(I don’t know if you caught any of William Shatner’s spontaneous reactions to his recent adventure. The ninety-year-old Canadian-born actor went up Wednesday, Oct. 13, in the “Blue Origin” rocket and descended safely to the West Texas desert floor. His eyes fixed on the blue of our earth-atmospheric provision of survival, and in contrast, the endless black of space. It was what I would call a spiritual experience, indeed an existential and mystical encounter for him. It brought him tears and disturbing awe. He said, “I hope I never get over it.” The physical reality of the earth’s atmosphere and open space has existed since our solar system settled into its pattern. But Shatner’s sensing of it in that way spawned wonderment.)

We will never be done discovering the power of Jesus’s Name or the mystery of his saving death. The Collect of this Sunday reads: 

Almighty and everlasting God, in Christ you have revealed your glory among the nations: Preserve the works of your mercy, that your Church throughout the world may persevere with steadfast faith in the confession of your Name. Amen.

We confess his Name knowing we will never be done taking in the revelation of its glory. Like Fr. Bates attested in a recent sermon, there is no end to our discovery of Christ and the power of the good news. In the Isaiah description of a paradoxically powerful suffering servant, we will ever see Jesus, inexpressibly bringing about our healing:

Out of his anguish he shall see light; he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge. The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. (Isaiah 53:11-12)

Somehow, Jesus gave himself and we are saved. It is wrapped in infinite Love.  If all that is meaningful about that were represented by your physical body, what any of us currently know about it would fit on one’s thumbnail. The transcendent mystery is calling. Its partial revealing comes in innumerable ways—worship, relationship, nature, sacrament, space flight, meditation, art, reflection, and the like. Let’s get after it. We have contemplating to do—and the receiving of new life.