Mystery
suggests more than it says. When something is mysterious, we do not entirely understand
it. It cannot entirely be explained. Once you can fully explain a mystery it no longer
remains one.
Mystery is like poetry, enlarging our
understanding but never quite capable of being restated.
Mystery is open-ended, revelatory, and
renewable.
Mystery can be communed with.
Mystery discloses itself but has deep
resources that can be drawn on.
Mystery humbles us, even as it also ennobles
us.
Mystery is both present and absent.
Mystery is ever expanding yet always
subtracting.
Christ is God's mystery revealed.
Christ is mystery because he can teach us
more than we can know.
Christ is God's mystery revealed because he
offers us more than we can ever receive. He, as God's mystery (musterion) made
known, can only be received, paradoxically, when we offer all we are yet lay aside all we
are. The New Testament concept of a "mystery" is a secret of God's that is
revealed and that continues to reveal more as we are engaged by it.
Even as we learn more, we learn how little
we know. Living with literature can perhaps teach us something about living with the
mystery of Christ. At its best, a good work of art cannot be exhausted, summed up, or
written off. It continues to suggest more. Mystery in literature often presents us
with elements that are not spelled out because to do so would ruin the art. Matters
are often best left fuzzy and unfocused. This leaves us with the opportunity to keep
returning to tease out a little more of the meaning each time we read. We keep
waiting for the hints. Yet those hints are always enought. The mystery of God is not left
unrevealed. He has spoken that we may know enough.
Equally, literature asks us to
live with the paradoxical and to stay open to metaphors. A paradox cannot be fully
explained, or it ceases to be a paradox. Metaphors at their best overflow with
additional meaning; they show us the world in a way we had not previously seen it.
And that too is following Christ. Mystery, after all, asks us to wait patiently that
we might know more.
* * * * *
Central Insight: The experience of mystery
in literature is analogous (but not identical) to the experience of mystery in faith; it
shares with it a certain kind of stance towards life.
Suggestions for Application: Locate a
particular use of mystery, mystery, or complex metaphor in a literary work. Be sure
to discuss the specifics of this. Draw an analogy between this and your own faith
experience.
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