I've heard it said that God doesn't keep secrets. In some degree that's true. God is not secretive, as we can be. He doesn't keep secrets in order to further his own agenda, or to be spiteful, or even just for fun. He also doesn't keep anything secret from us that we really need to know. There are no secrets when it comes to personal salvation or to treating others as we should. Instead, God is very forthright about such things. We may complicate these issues on our own and we may not want to hear the messages themselves, but that is our problem; God is not being secretive.
Nevertheless, God does have secrets, I believe. Or perhaps the better word may be mysteries. Either way, God knows things we don't know, and never will know, and probably never could know. We have to get used to that fact.
That's not easy for people, or course. We like to find things out, we like to learn, and we love to uncover secrets. Even the most well-meaning, faith-driven people in the world can become obsessed with God's secrets. Take for instance the ever-popular topic of the End Times. The Bible gives us just enough hints about this subject to truly whet our appetite for discovery. People have been trying for centuries to reveal the mystery, to second-guess God and to be the one who figures out when Jesus is returning (and beyond that, exactly what is going to unfold and what the divine agenda will look like). I wonder at times if anything in the past two thousand years has so thoroughly managed to sidetrack the Christian faith and its work in this world as has our obsession with the End Times -- the Second Coming -- Judgement Day -- the Eschaton. (And if you didn't recognize that last word, don't worry, you really don't need to.)
Movements, denominations, sects, and splinter groups have all been created over disputes arising from this one great topic which, from what I can tell, is best left a mystery. For all the high-minded reasoning people can have for wanting to concentrate on End Times theology and an End Times mindset, this fascination often drives us from God's mandate. In my opinion, 90 percent of all the speculation that has gone on regarding the end of time has its root in human pride. We want to know what will happen and when because it gives us a smug superiority over those who are going blindly from day to day without such knowledge. Really, think about it, if you're hit by a bus tomorrow then bam, that was your last chance, right? It doesn't matter if Jesus returns in two weeks or in two thousand years -- you're still dead and the judgement will still await you. So why do people pretend that they are trying to "read the signs of the times" so as to help convince people to turn to God, when in reality those same people need direction no matter when the Second Coming is scheduled, as their lives -- all our lives -- are on a very short thread? God is not secretive, but he has secrets. It's a sign of our weakness that we can't just live with that.
But the End Times are only one example of our strivings to understand God's mysteries. Bookstores are lines with volumes tackling topics of what the Bible really means, who Jesus really was, and whether God even really exists. The human race has an insatiable appetite for unravelling the mysteries for which there are no earthly answers, and which therefore we cannot answer in this life. Yet we keep on trying. Why? Perhaps it is that remnant of our souls that recognizes what we lost through disobedience against God, and all through our lives some part of us wants to have that familiarity back, that experience in the Garden when God's secrets were no more than the fruit of a forbidden tree. Yet that same part of us that ate from the tree still yearns today to know what God knows, even though we don't deserve it.
Ecclesiastes 8:16-17 tells us:
When I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done on earth, how neither day nor night do one's eyes see sleep, then I saw all the work of God, that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. However much man may toil in seeking, he will not find it out. Even though a wise man claims to know, he cannot find it out.We have to accept that God is bigger than us, greater than us, and that he is creator, we, his creation. Nowhere in the Bible is God more clear about this than in the Book of Job. After Job's calamities, he defends himself to his friends and demands an answer from God himself. Job is not alone in his demand. Most people, perhaps, have demanded an answer in some time of weakness and despair. But unlike most of us Job received an answer, in full Biblical splendor:
Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:And God's haranguing goes on and on, putting Job in his place. "Have you commanded the morning since your days began?" "Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades?" "Do you give the horse his might?" "Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook?" Job is left humbled, as are we. The speech is clear: God's ways, God's powers, are beyond us. We have a gift of intellect, and indeed we must use it. God even says in Isaiah 1, "Come now, let us reason together." God wants us to use our reason, our intellect, our mind. But he also wants us to use that other gift he gives us -- our faith. For we can do a great deal through intelligence, but we can do far more through faith. Through intelligence we tap into our own power; through faith we tap into God's power. It is in faith that we realize God's mysteries are great, but his revelation is even greater.
“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
Dress for action like a man;
I will question you, and you make it known to me.
“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements—surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
On what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone,
when the morning stars sang together
and all the sons of God shouted for joy? (Job 38:1-7)
In today's sermon on the prayer of lament, I recalled that this prayer is a communal one. In our role as comforters we don't, however, become God's apologist: "As brothers and sisters in Christ we are to offer words of love NOT words of explanation. Only our Lord can truly give someone peace and understanding – we cannot give meaning to senseless events – that job belongs to God, and we may never fully understand the purpose behind some things in this world. As Christians we often feel compelled to “make someone feel better,” but sadness is normal and necessary. We are supposed to be there to listen, bear part of the burden of grief, and finally to be messengers of hope." This was my subtle reference to the deep mysteries of God's will and even the unmentionable issue of theodicy. After a tragedy we have had so many folks who mean well put words in God's mouth or actions in his hands - the more I live and experience the world, the less likely I am to do this. I am comforted in this desire to "be in the dark" about God's meaning and purpose behind certain events that when I am in his awesome presence, I doubt very seriously that I will ask for an explanation.
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