A Christmas Mystery

There is a mystery at Christmas.  Not a who-done-it detective story wherein one can follow certain clues and evidences in order to solve a puzzle.  But there is a deep mystery, a sense of wonder at Christmas.

I wonder as I wander, out under the sky,
how Jesus the Savior did come for to die;
to save lowly people like you and like I,
I wonder as I wander, out under the sky.

There is a mystery at Christmas.  Something unknown and unknowable becomes known.  Something utterly beyond comes near.  This is the mystery of Christmas – that the God who is infinitely beyond our understanding reveals himself to us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, that the God who dwells in inaccessible light stepped down into darkness so that we could begin to see.

But it’s very easy to let that sense of wonder slip away. It gets crowded out by all the other “holiday spirits.”  That quiet sense of awe and astonishment gets drowned out by noisy carols, by holiday shopping and baking and gift giving. We confuse that wonder with nostalgia.  We mistake that awe for cheer.  And in all the bustling excitement and good tidings of Christmas it’s easy to loose that sense of the numinous, that awareness that something impossible, something real, and something impossibly real has happened.

The Greek word from which we derive our English word mystery – mysterion – is not merely a puzzle to be solved but is some that is revealed for our understanding – but also something that we can never understand exhaustively.  There will always be more.  We can always go deeper into this mystery.

One of the early church fathers (Theophilus of Antioch) said that “the form of God is ineffable and indescribable, and cannot be seen with eyes of flesh.  He is in glory uncontainable, in greatness incomprehensible, in loftiness inconceivable, in strength incomparable, in wisdom inaccessible, in love inimitable, [and] in beneficence inexpressible.”

And yet, the wonder of it all is that we have been given a glimpse of this invisible and indescribable God.  Though veiled in flesh and blood, that infant child born to Mary and Joseph in a cattle stall in the backwater village of Bethlehem was God incarnate.  They held in their arms the uncontainable and unapproachable God.  This is a mystery that we would do well to ponder.

I recorded this for KJLY radio in Blue Earth, Minnesota.  It should be broadcast this morning at about 8:40 AM. I thought I'd post it here for those who are not within the listening area of that station.