The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe
"Great Is the Mystery"
Part 2
Human beings love a mystery. We enjoy intrigue in stories, plays, and film, being presented with that which we do not know or understand, but hope and expect will become clear as we read or watch. This inclination exists in us because of the greatest of all mysteries…
"Great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh" (I Timothy 3:16).
No narrative of intrigue compares with the conundrum that the second Person of the infinite and eternal Godhead somehow became human, while remaining divine. When called to build an earthly temple for the Lord, Solomon declared of Him, "The heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee!" (I Kings 8:27). Had Solomon known that a human temple would one day house in personal terms the transcendent God, we can only imagine the bewilderment he would have proclaimed.
What should be our response to such truth forever beyond our full comprehension? One answer is to follow our inclination to love a mystery. What a wonder, that our Lord somehow spans the gap between the eternal and the temporal in His own personal being. He should seemingly not even exist. In both Heaven and earth, there is no one like Him, nor will there ever be in "the mystery of godliness." Thus, the very basis of our faith, the Person of the Lord Jesus, leads us to our proper place of acknowledging that God is God, and we are not. We seek to know some about the mystery, and to know more as we "grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (II Peter 3:18). However, the mystery will forever abide, even as it forever calls us to discover as much as God will allow and our hearts can know. No more thrilling prospect beckons us as we love this greatest of all mysteries, namely, our Lord Himself. "Call unto Me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not" (Jeremiah 33:3).
The Lord Jesus is the God who became man, and the man who remains God. From His conception in the womb of Mary until forevermore, He will remain the Mystery never to be fully solved in our minds, but eternally offering new glimpses that thrill and fulfill our hearts. We open His Book to be intrigued, knowing that we will at times catch some new glimmer of light never before known, or find a previous illumination of our Lord's glory enhanced and expanded. We also know that no final "Aha, that's it!" awaits us. Indeed, one mystery solved regarding our Lord leads to another, and another, as it always will. Yes, we love mysteries because we were made to love this greatest of all mysteries, "the mystery of godliness."
"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth."
(John 1:14)
Weekly Memory Verse
For though He was crucified through weakness, yet He liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in Him, but we shall live with Him by the power of God toward you.
(II Corinthians 13:4)
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