Recapturing Mystery? Wonder? Awe?

[I wrote this blog a while ago but left in on the back burner for a while.]

It has been a heavy week. Two women called me crying on the same day. Another broke down into tears. News of two suicides. News of a sudden death due to a brain injury. News of the sudden death of another. Wrestling with my own insecurities. Broken homes. Children wanted by no one. Those far from God because of heretical pastors saying it’s ok for men to beat women. Alcoholism ruining relationships. Drugs ruining others. Selfishness. Hearing of depression. Hearing of a woman who has had enough. Other broken families. Another friend mocked and/or lied to.

The weight of it all makes me feel as if darkness has won the day and I am drowning in a sea of misery. To quote Jerry Harvill, it feels as if, “only bad surprises remain.” He goes on to say:

“Our generation suffers because such mystery [wonder, awe, adventure] is in short supply. We have everything, yet we suffer from boredom and loneliness. We’re the ‘Is that all there is?‘ generation, waiting in vain for something better to come along, trading in what we have for something we think we should want. On Saturday night, bars are full of jaded weary lives wishing most of all for the innocence to be surprised by life again.”

Part of the problem is that we have traded wonder and simplicity for technology.  Harvill also said, “Imagination is superfluous in an age of special effects. - God, who once was encountered in wind and rain and harvest, has been driven from our lives by ‘miracles‘ of technology.  Like our shrinking planet, He has become too predictable to be impressive.  Nevertheless, there remains a God-shaped hole at the center of today’s wounded that surrogates will not fill.”  

We have exchanged the wonder of God for idols of man’s making and those idols can’t bear the weight that we put on them. Only God is strong enough to bear the weight of glory we desire. As Romans 1 says, we have “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man” and “exchanged the truth of God for a lie” serving ourselves rather than the Creator. God gave us over to our lusts to show that these manmade things are crummy gods and can’t deliver the promised results. Instead we are a jaded people. The very definition of jaded means “tired, bored, or lacking enthusiasm, typically after having had too much of something.”   

These become the cries of our soul: Where is hope? Where is joy? Where is the mystery?  Where is wonder? Will things ever get better? Where is excitement? Why am I bored? Why am I lonely? Where is innocence? What has gone wrong?  

We all know that something has gone wrong. Deep inside of us, we know that rape, rage, selfishness, pride, hypocrisy, distortions of truth, all these things are morally wrong. The world is broken. We all KNOW this. So how do we diagnose it?  

On the surface, my first reaction is to elevate my own goodness above those around me, swelling with the emptiness of pride, thinking that “I’m not that bad.” The problem obviously is with others, not me. I can see it clearly in others, but me, I’m not that bad. I’m not a terrorist. I’m not a murderer. I’ve never raped. I typically don’t lie. Sure, I’m selfish, but not all the time. I’m really a good person most of the time.  

As I pan back a little and do some soul searching, I find these inner hidden thoughts, that I too am guilty:

-Instant rage that I was not catered to

-Intense frustration that they dared to ask me to sacrifice my turn

-Selfishness, impatience, frustration, irritation and a desire to never see this one particular draining friend again.

-Pride that “I have it together” as I place myself beside people who have had far harder lives than my own.  

-Fear that all my work will go down the drain.  

-Bits of dishonesty, not major lies but white lies.  

Panning back even further, I find myself in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve and the serpent discussing why eating the fruit was a good idea, Adam and Eve buying into the illusion that they knew what was better for themselves than their Creator. Like a fish, they took the bait and immediately discovered they had been duped. That place of innocence was now reeking with guilt, shame, fear and death. Wholeness became broken. Humanity began to disintegrate immediately. Adam and Eve didn’t even make it to having grandchildren before a son was murdered. This single incident of disobedient fruit-eating opened Pandora’s box and all Hell broke lose. This is the root of ALL of our problems today. Mankind rebelled against God and in the rebellion mankind was separated from Him, no longer innocent.  

A single act did this. A bite of a fruit seemed harmless. The consequences seem harsh for such a minor indiscretion, consequences of immediate shame, guilt, and fear, banishment from the garden, and a slaughtered innocent animal to clothe the guilty parties. Death and bloodshed was needed to remedy this one indiscretion. As I examine my own life, I have the audacity to say that my occasional rage and selfishness is ‘not that bad‘ and God should let me into Heaven on my merit. If these were the consequences of one single act of disobedience, what is the punishment and payment needed to remedy my many sins? The consequences are the same, death and bloodshed are needed to pay for my sins. I cry out with the apostle Paul:

“Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” -Romans 7:24-25

Jesus. He is my hope. He is my joy. He is my Rescuer and my Restorer. In the greatest scandal of history, Jesus died the death I deserved to die and paid the punishment I deserved. As the old hymn goes, “He sealed my pardon with His blood.” 

Quoting Harvill once again, “A god who cannot relate to human failure is a god to whom failed humans cannot relate. That’s why today’s walking wounded need to discover the mystery of God’s human face. The meaning of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ is the message that God is the God of struggle, that He knows complexity rather than shortcuts, that whatever else is true in the universe it is true that God is united with hurting, suffering, struggling, humanity.”

In this act of sacrifice, Jesus brings mystery and wonder and awe back to my life. He gives me something worth living for and invites me to join him on a great adventure. The road is not easy and there are many risks involved but He deeply satisfies me and anyone else who will follow Him in this adventure.

And as my heart is stirred by this Good News with affection for Jesus, I am awoken to His gifts all around me. I have learned to appreciate the Big gifts as well as the tiny bits of joy. I have learned to name His gifts and to search out His beauty. Having this beautiful relationship with God’s human face, His incarnation, I long to live my life in a way to represent this beauty to the world. I hope that my life brings light and life and awe and wonder and mystery back to this broken earth as I point people back to Jesus who did this for me.