Let me tell you a Mystery!
The focus in Mathew’s gospel on the wise men from the East foreshadows the “mystery” of Christ’s birth, that is, as St. Paul clarifies in his letter to the Ephesians, that “the Gentiles should be fellow heirs . . . of his promise in Christ by the gospel,” meaning that God’s love includes everyone, “to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages hath been hidden in God who created all things by Jesus Christ.” The main theme of Paul’s letter concerns the “mystery”—notice that the word is repeated four times in this brief passage–and that there’s no mystery anymore. Paul refers to what was “in other ages not made known” but “is now revealed.” It was “hidden” only because mankind was too obtuse to see the truth. It takes humanity a while to figure out God’s truth; we’re rather slow. For the last two millennia, there should have been no mystery about God’s love for all humanity, for all creation, but looking at human history, especially the history of the church, the atrocities committed in the name of Jesus, the hatred between people of different races and religions, one wonders if the mystery is not still quite hidden. It’s a mystery to me how mankind keeps missing the truth; it is truly the peace that passes all understanding.
To see Christ in others: now therein lies a mystery. When joy and love manifest themselves in others, we easily recognize the spirit of Christ, the divine spark, for “where love is, God is.”
But I shouldn’t be surprised, for the gospel story itself presents the birth of Jesus in the midst of violence and intrigue, as King Herod seeks to kill the Christ child—the dark lord of the empire attacking the light of the world. Well into the third millennium, the dangers from sectarian violence, from terrorism, from the rise of fundamentalism in all religions, are increasing. As Western society becomes even more diverse and multi-cultural, the demands on entrenched social institutions and perspectives will require increased tolerance and patience, indeed, the peace and goodwill associated with Christ’s birth. It will require from Christians the ability to grasp and to live the mystery, to see that all people that on earth do dwell are all beloved children of the living God.
To see Christ in others: now therein lies a mystery. When joy and love manifest themselves in others, we easily recognize the spirit of Christ, the divine spark, for “where love is, God is.” That’s the easy part. Jesus challenges us because he identified himself with the marginalized in society, the sick and the suffering, the sinful and the lost: “as you do it to the least of these, you do it also to me” (Matthew 25). Mother Teresa spoke often of her faith in action, of seeing Christ in the face of the destitute and the dying. She challenges our tendency to categorize those in need, to divide people into the deserving and the undeserving poor. The task is to see Christ in those we might classify as “undeserving,” those we judge have created their situation, their misery. When Jesus fed the 5000, he didn’t administer a means test beforehand, he didn’t distinguish between the deserving and undeserving, but ministered to their common need. Our job is not to reason why, for each person is beloved of God; our task, as difficult and mysterious as it is to do, is to love unconditionally, to love extravagantly, to help them be all that they can be. That is the ideal Christ sets before us.
In all of these issues, the problem may be that within the Christian church, within the individual Christian soul, there actually may be no deep sense of mystery, no awe-inspiring experience of the infinite and the holy. There is no mystery about the meaning of Jesus, that God’s boundless love extends to all, but there may be no sense of mystery in our worship or in our daily lives. Kenneth Davis in his delightful, informative book, Don’t Know Much about the Bible, comments that “One of the reasons why religion seems irrelevant today is that many of us no longer have the sense that we are surrounded by the unseen.” Therein lies the mystery of Emmanuel. Like the wise men of old, we still search for epiphany, but we need not wander as far as they: “be still and know that I am God.” The mystery has been made known in Christ Jesus and our task is to seek continually the meaning of Christmas: God with us, God with us all, God within us, everyone, everywhere, always. The greatest Christmas present we receive is the gift of Epiphany, of God’s love for all of us. Let us accept that love ourselves and serve others that they too may know that love.