“I am writing these things to you now, even though I hope to be with you soon, so that if I am delayed, you will know how people must conduct themselves in the household of God. This is the church of the living God, which is the pillar and foundation of the truth. Without question, this is the great mystery of our faith: Christ was revealed in a human body and vindicated by the Spirit. He was seen by angels and announced to the nations. He was believed in throughout the world and taken to heaven in glory.”
I grew up loving mysteries. I would anxiously save up money five dollars at a time so that I could buy the next Hardy Boys book. I watched reruns of Scooby-Do on TV. The first adult book I ever read was a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories. There was always something exciting about trying to solve the mystery along with the characters. So when I think of a mystery, that is what I think of: Sherlock Holmes and the Hardy Boys. I think of an unsolved crime that will not be solved until the last few pages of the story.
Paul, however, thinks of something quite different. In a mystery story, the criminal is normally hidden until just the right moment – the moment when the tension is at its height. It’s often a moment when things seem to have gotten impossibly off track. In Paul’s thinking a mystery was quite different. It wasn’t the criminal that was hidden – it was the hero, specifically the divine hero. The idea is that God was actively at work in the world, but his work was always behind the scenes, hidden. But every mystery builds up to the big reveal. God’s big reveal of his plan was Jesus. It was in Jesus that we discovered who God is. It was in Jesus that we discovered how God plans to heal and restore the world. It was in Jesus that we found out how God will finally solve the greatest mystery in the universe: how a rebellious creation could possibly be restored to its loving God.
Here’s your freedom for today: less depends on you than you think. God has been at work for centuries unfolding a plan to restore the world. That plan began long before you were born. It will likely continue long after you die. In the midst of this grand cosmic plan, however, you are deeply loved. The very goal of God’s cosmic, mysterious plan has been to bring men and women like us back into relationship with Himself. The key, however, is this: in God’s plan, you are not the savior. Jesus is.