The Mystery of God?
Readings:
Exodus 3:1-15
1 Corinthians 2:6-11
Aim: To ask the question of Seminarians: Where has our wonder of God’s mystery gone? And how can we put that wonder of the mystery of God back in our lives?
Purpose: The way in which we put the mystery back is by leaving space for ‘not knowing’ about God because we cannot know God entirely.
Introduction
• There is no God!
• I have been joking around with Vusi the past couple of days insisting that God does not exist.
• Some might say that I have committed blasphemy, and I would agree with you all.
• The truth is though, that I sometimes feel like that, especially as a student of theology.
• I also believe that we all at sometime feel this way, perhaps not always, but at some time in our lives.
• We began once as young Christians with an awe and wonder of God that we could just not explain and now we are filled with the knowledge of doctrines and rational thinking.
• Our imaginations could run wild when we thought of God.
• There was somewhat of a mystery about God that kept us on fire for God.
• I want to know where that mystery has gone?
• That sense of not knowing the secretness of God.
• The problem arises when you get what some call adolescent Christians.
• Many of us here have teenage children; some of us were teenagers not so long ago.
• Haven’t you noticed how teenagers know it all – there’s nothing you can teach them?
• Well Christians get like that too at times in their lives – where they know everything about God.
• So much so that they forget about the fact that we cannot know God fully.
• This challenged me when I read a book called Your God is too safe by Mark Buchanan.
• On the one hand we are faced with a faith based on, what Mark Buchanan says, staggering mysteries – the trinity, the incarnation, the cross and the resurrection.
• On the other hand we are able to write slick and well-explained essays on each of those subjects.
• My intention today is ask the question I asked just now, “Where has that mystery gone?”
• Not to displace the importance of our studies in theology and bible.
• I certainly believe that if we leave those behind we will not be grounded and we will not be able to minister to real people.
• What I am talking about is this:
• Illustration
• I’m sure all of us have experienced a kiss before, I’m not talking about the kind you give your granny, I mean THAT kind of kiss.
• Now if I describe a kiss in pure physical terms it sounds disgusting.
• I mean two people press their moist, creased facial orifices together, pinch tight the sphincter muscles to draw the flesh around the orifice into a bulbous mound, and exchange saliva and breath.
• That just takes the whole mysterious reason why we kiss our loved ones.
• You see we sometimes fall into the danger of describing God so intricately that we miss the mystery of God our loved one.
• My intention is to help us find that mystery again that kept us on fire in the beginning, to be able to use our imaginations again.
What is this mystery?
• Two men in the bible experienced that mystery that I’m talking about, both of them in our readings today.
i. Moses
• Moses found out about that mystery the day he went tending the sheep in the far side of the desert that one fateful day.
• As he was walking he noticed a most peculiar sight, a bush that was on fire and it was not burned up.
• We all know the events around this so let me just say this – it was here that God would reveal God’s identity to Moses.
• Now fire is often used in the bible to describe the presence of God and this was no different.
• A strange and mysterious way to reveal Godself to Moses.
• Another thing here is that God identifies Godself to Moses by saying "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” It is not Moses who identifies God.
• After God reveals God’s plan to him, Moses asks how he should identify God to the Hebrews.
• A name in that context was something that described the essence, the very being of the name bearer.
• Now it is interesting to note here that up until now, God had been identified according to various attributes of God i.e. El Shaddai (God Almighty), El Elyon (God most high), El Olam (God eternal) and El Roi (God who sees me).
• All valid but not all encompassing.
• Here God identifies Godself as I AM – so this name does not limit God’s nature, God just is.
• And in this passage God indicates in identifying Godself that God will not change – God was worshipped by earlier generations and will be worshipped for generations to come.
• It is in that very name that we begin to discover God’s mystery.
• That fact that God just is – what a mystery.
• We cannot just pin God down to one thing, however skilled Theologians we are.
• That name is so mysterious and Holy that no devout Jew would even utter that name.
• It is in God’s name that we discover God’s mystery.
ii. Paul
• Paul also discovers this mystery and speaks about it in his first letter to the Corinthians.
• In a society that so admired the wisdom that came from men, Paul just had to remind the Corinthians whose wisdom was in fact far more important.
• Paul compares the wisdom of the big shot academics of the day with the wisdom from God.
• It was with no amount of reasoning that anybody could muster up that would explain what God had in store for those who believed as he quotes Isaiah in v. 9.
• This would remain a mystery as long as one would use the human mind to conceive it.
• It is only, as Paul says in v. 10, through the Spirit of God that this would be revealed.
• So the mystery of God in this case was what God had in store for all who believed as well as even the very depths of God – that is all that God is about.
• So if we think that we going to be able to wrap God into a neat little package with our own reasoning we are sorely mistaken.
• It is not our task as theologians to do this; our task is to seek God.
• And according to Paul it is only through the Spirit that this will be revealed to us.
• That is the Mystery; we need God to find God.
• What I have spoken about are some of the Mystery of God:
• The fact that God just is and cannot be pinned down to any one particular construct
• And that we cannot find God unless we have God
How can we find this mystery again?
I. In our worship
• When Moses approached the bush he was instructed to take off his sandals because he was on Holy Ground.
• This was an act of worship, not because Moses knew what this meant but because this hidden and secret voice told him to do it.
• Remember the very fact that God revealed Godself in the burning bush was mysterious and Moses was in awe.
• What about our worship – both individually and corporately?
• Is it not possible that our worship often becomes a chore; I know that is true at times for me.
• Particularly because we are people who lead worship so often. So it becomes something so clinical and well structured that we forget what we’re doing.
• We recite liturgies, sing hymns and songs with great gusto and we pray with words we use all the time – and I want to say that even the newest and creative ways of worship can become like this too.
• Do we not remember what we’re doing, we’re worshipping the God who is I AM, whose depths we cannot understand without God explaining them.
• A God who will reveal Godself in the most mysterious ways.
• Our forms of worship are all relevant ways to give glory and honour to God, but without that mystery it is dead.
• When we worship, become lost in that mystery before we get lost in our service.
II. In our call
• Winnie focussed on this on Tuesday, remember that day you were called.
• I won’t spend too much time on this but just to remind us of what Winnie said.
• Our calls are shrouded in mystery.
• Moses’ call was no different; Moses could not comprehend why God had called him. Why not somebody else?
• How was he to explain this to everyone?
• When you stood before that CQM, it was difficult to describe your call, you just knew that you were called.
• If were to pursue a career in Accountancy, it would be easy to explain that you were good at number crunching and that it were a viable lucrative career – and you would be driving a BMW in no time.
• Our call is no so easily explained. I mean explain to someone why you would want to take a job where you where essentially homeless, where you never really earn a salary but the stipend you receive is merely something you receive as a gift and where you can’t always choose where you want to live.
• It is mysterious why we would do such a thing, but God called us.
• I want to say this, keep pursuing to explain your call, but don’t let go of that mystery, the one that you couldn’t explain.
• That will keep it a call and not turn it into a career.
III. In our lives
• I’m sure that at sometimes in our lives we feel depressed; like there is nothing that can cheer us up.
• Pressures of life seem to pack up sucking every possibility of enjoying our lives.
• We could even ask what the meaning of life is.
• Why do we get that way? I’m not an expert on human behaviour but I sure do know how I feel.
• It is at those times when I’ve lost that fire for God, I’ve felt that I cannot rely on God for any source of support. I lose that mystery of what God has prepared for me.
• The truth is this: God knows that meaning since he created life in God’s wisdom.
• Paul says that the wisdom of God is secret and hidden – mysterious.
• No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has ever conceived what God has in store for us.
• That sense of not knowing, but God knows and will reveal it to us when we are ready – or as Paul says mature.
• When we seek to understand the meaning of life without God we lose the mystery.
• Let us give mystery its rightful place again, without us trying to seek our own meaning in life.
Conclusion
• Illustration
• Sing ‘Be still and know that I am God’
• Invite everyone to the front to get a flower
• Look at the flower; forget about explaining how that flower came to be via biological means.
• Like the trying to describe the kiss, just experience the flower for what it is a beautiful creation.
• You see when we try to explain the flower, we lose the experience of the flower
• Let us not become so focussed on trying to explain everything about God that it is the only thing we do.
• It will be a sad day when, we as people called by God, can say that we have lost that wonder about the mystery of God.
• Let us be able to make the statement that the Psalmist says in Ps. 145:3 “Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise; his greatness no-one can fathom.”
• Always seek that mystery. AMEN
