More often than not, people tell me they think it is more important to focus on this life as it is lived here and now, rather than focus on some final destination. Often it is because they want to make sure they aren’t “so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good”.
Others believe they will “lose their blessing” if they do good here in this life only for what they see as a selfish desire of heavenly rewards in the end. They believe that doing good for the wrong reasons negates any blessing it might bring, and try to act as if all their kindness and generosity comes from a natural goodness without any thought of benefit to oneself.
Still others, including a Lutheran church musician named Peter, believe that not only is life all about the journey, but there is greater blessing in living with and accepting all the mysteries of life without demanding any answers.
Peter and many like him say that we must embrace the mystery, and tend to look down on those who believe they have solid answers. Peter referred me to a favorite philosopher and poet named Rainer Maria Rilke, who is well-known for his belief in mysticism and mystery. Here is a famous quote from Rilke that Peter told me of:
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
So is this good or foolish advice? I believe a little of both. As a Christian, the Gospel and the Bible do contain many “paradoxes”, which have the outward appearance of containing unexplainable contradictions and inconsistencies, but which can be seen to make perfect sense with a very deep and sublime beauty if we are willing to accept that they defy easy explanation and contain some mystery that we will never be able to explain this side of heaven, or maybe ever for that matter.
The mystery comes when we rely on ourselves, rather than on God, to explain the unexplainable. But if we can accept that it is God who reveals Himself on His own terms, and it is God who determines and establishes the terms of how we are to relate to Him through a series of covenants throughout biblical history, then we can also live life with solid and explainable answers – maybe not all the answers we might want, but certainly all the answers God knows we need.
The first pages of God’s revelation of Himself tell us we were made in His image, and thus able to relate to Him on many levels. It tells us in Colossians that Jesus “is the image of the invisible God”, so that if we want to know specifics about who God is and what He is like, we can look to the life and teachings of His Son.
In John 17:3 Jesus tells us “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” This means that eternal life isn’t found in a future destination but rather in a present relationship, so the answer to the question of journey or destination isn’t “either/or” but “both/and”. It’s the reason Paul could write “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain”.
Jesus is our destination, and He is also our journey. Jesus is our clear truth, and He is also our mystery. It’s all about Jesus, and I hope and pray that Peter and others like him can come to that realization.
Thanks, Peter, for allowing me to record our conversation! It can be seen at https://youtu.be/TkHHtOibDkU on my YouTube channel.
No comments:
Post a Comment