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The Mystery Believed
© Copyright 1994 God With Us Publications
About the Cover - In the Byzantine tradition, the MYSTERY BELIEVED is epitomized, not so much by a text, as by the life-giving cross of the Lord. The sign of the cross, made so often in liturgical and private prayer, is a non-verbal proclamation of faith in the heart of the Christian mystery: the Trinity, the incarnation and the saving death of Christ, which cannot be separated from His resurrection. This life-giving quality of the cross is represented, in this detail from an icon of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, by the sprig of basil which St. Macarios carries along with the cross. Table Of Contents: Prologue Chapter
One: The Mystery of God Chapter Two: The Mystery Revealed Chapter Three: The Mystery Shared Epilogue Note: God With Us Publications has limited us to the posting of Chapter One of this book on the internet. To read the rest of the book, please contact God With Us Publications for purchasing information. "I have come so that they may have life, and have it to the full" (Jn 10:10 JB). With these words St. John’s Gospel explains the purpose of the incarnation. The Word of God - who brought all things into being at creation (cf Jn 1:1-4) - now brings about a new creation by taking flesh to bring us life in its truest sense. The One who first gave us being now calls us beyond the confines of created time and space to a destiny-filled experience of His presence. Remade in the depths of our being through this encounter, the Christian faithful of our day echo the cry of the first believers, "From his fullness we have, all of us, received - yes, grace upon grace" (Jn 1:16 JB alt). The recreating presence of the Word of God among us opens the way for us to share in the "grace" of God: not an object or thing, but the very fullness of God Himself graciously given to us. Through Christ we are offered an entry into the intimate life of God and the mystery of the Holy Trinity. And it is faith, that openness to the working of God both in the world and in the depths of our being, which frees each of us to partake of this newness of life. It is, the Scripture says, "... to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God" (Jn 1:12 RSV). Faith is a dynamic with many levels of meaning on which we may reflect. We may best begin by thinking of faith as St. Maximus the Confessor saw it: "Faith is true knowledge, the principles of which are beyond rational demonstration; for faith makes real for us things beyond intellect and reason" (First Century on Theology, 9). For many moderns this explanation is a contradiction in terms. Those who accept only the intellect as the locus for ascertaining truth would say that there can be no knowledge beyond intellect and reason. For them rational argument, logical structures, scientific experimentation or observation are the tools of knowledge; faith would be dismissed as ‘subjective’. The great advances in science and technology by this methodology obscure for them the lack of ultimate answers to questions of origin or purpose or even the sheer wonderment of existence. The Tradition of the Scriptures and the Fathers, however, affirms a more profound form of knowledge arising from deep within our being: a knowledge which remains outside the experience of those who value only the scientific method. It is this knowledge, born of the image of God found in everyone and the union with God of those who have put on Christ, which both generates the fullness of life in us and is the essence of that life as well. "Eternal life is this: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent" (Jn 17:3 JB).
WE GROW IN FAITH The Scriptural word for the way the believer puts one faith in God is eis ("into"). Our Lord told the apostles to "baptize [all nations] into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Mt 28:19). Accordingly at every baptism we sing, "All of you who have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ, alleluia" (cf Gal 3:27). Baptism "into" means most accurately that we belong to Him in whose name we have been baptized.1 We more than belong; we "become" Christ as if we were embraced by Him. We express a faith that is more than just a belief in a set of propositions. It is a process of becoming what we believe, of moving towards union with the Trinity to whom we belong by baptism. How far is this vision of faith from that of our own age! For many today faith is simple opinion about the appearance of truth: a matter of intellectual or emotional conviction. In the traditional Christian understanding, faith is nothing less than an event of ultimate reality, surpassing the limitations of the life of this world. Yet there is an intellectual side to faith, a dimension of reasonableness or openness to logical expression. We can express our perception of what faith reveals through word-symbols, though these words remain inadequate to express the fullness of this reality. Thus the Church proclaims the mystery of God in specific terms in its profession of belief, the Nicene Creed, while reminding us that this is but a Symbol of the One we encounter through faith. One aspect of the call to faith, then, is an invitation to make our own the Church’s understanding of what God has shown us of Himself and what He has done to unite ourselves with Him. We are called not simply to a generic belief in God or religion, but to the faith of the Church. The first part of this presentation, "The Mystery Believed," sketches this mystery of the God who loves us and reveals Himself to us.
FAITH AS COMMUNAL The Church has explicitly recognized the freedom involved in our acceptance of the gift of faith. A person can accept the fullness of faith only within the context of the community, but one must accept it freely. The modern age, on the other hand, has accepted a purely individualistic understanding of faith. "Real" faith is seen as a personal quest for the meaning of existence which is conducted in isolation, the journey of a lonely creature seeking union with God. The faith thus arrived at is viewed as completely subjective: a private matter whose truth is not important to anyone else. This notion of rugged individualism, individual faith or private Christianity would simply be unknown in a traditional mentality. The religion of the Scriptures and the Fathers is a corporate rather than an individual experience. God deals with individuals, to be sure, but He deals with them as part of a community, for faith is rather a gift of God first to the community of the Church and through the community to each individual person within it. Even those believers - prophets, hermits, monastics, not to mention Christ Himself - whose most exclusive and personal vocation called them forth from the life of the community were regularly sent back to the community with the fruit of their solitary experience. Coming to such a living faith may involve a personal search, but even that quest arises from the operation of God in the depths of our being under the guidance of His Spirit. God has instilled in us a thirst for understanding, to seek the reasons of all things and ultimately to discover Him, the Creator. He is present on this path, even from its beginning, as a Reality deep within us. And whenever an aware and free human person is open in faith, then God is discovered as having been working within one from the beginning. We also travel with others at our side to lead and teach, for the journey of faith takes place within a community whose culture gives form, expression, and witness to the presence of God as a living reality within it. And so, in Christian experience, a searcher for truth autonomous from others might exist theoretically until the search has led to Christ as the truth. At that point the believer can be described as having a deeply personal, but no longer private, faith. Individualistic Christianity is a self-contradiction. Faith requires a commitment to Christ and also to His Church, since the Lord identified Himself with His people, the Church. "[God] has put all things under Christ’s feet and has made Him, thus exalted, head of the Church which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills the universe in all its parts" (Eph 1:22-23 NAB). In "The Mystery Celebrated" that faith is shown to be no longer private. Its usual path to union with God is through baptism into His Church (cf Mt 28:19-20; Mk 16:16). Thus faith leading to baptism, expressed in a positive way, forms "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people claimed for God’s own" (1 Pt 2:9). The Church realizes this communal understanding of Christianity most particularly in the liturgical synaxis. Divine worship is not simply a pious support to individual devotion; it is the arena in which we experience the Kingdom. When believers gather, God acts again in our midst making us the "community of the Holy Spirit." Here we experience through the remembrance and re-presentation of worship the saving acts of God-among-us. The second part of this handbook presents an overview of the liturgical tradition by which our Churches encounter the indwelling Spirit of God.
CONSEQUENCES OF FAITH When God gives Himself to believers, He works a transformation in us. His gift mystically changes us and makes us into a new people through the power of the Spirit. This Spirit dwelling in us should affect our conscious lives as well to include the way we relate to others. The icon of the first Church drawn in the Acts of the Apostles shows us a people transfigured so that they "were looked up to by everyone" (Acts 2:47 JB). The Letter to Diognetus written at the end of the second century described this transformation as seen by a non-Christian: "They spend their lives on earth, but their citizenship is in heaven" (5:9). Thus true faith, which is the knowledge of God, never remains a detached intellectual exercise; it changes and transforms every aspect of our existence. While the liturgical synaxis is the primary way in which the Church expresses and renews its communal faith, the daily life of the believer is the principal arena in which personal faith is exercised. The normal course of maturing faith leads to this call going outward into the community which receives the Gospel. Faith in Christ should make a difference not only for the individual believer but also for society as a whole.
In all ages Christian have given up their lives for the sake of faith or have devoted themselves in service to people. Their faith does make a difference. At the same time, the human weakness of Christians may have led them to act unworthily and thus be responsible for injustices against others. "The Mystery Lived," our presentation’s third section, attempts to show that the world is not outside our realm as Christians. Rather our mission is to the whole world, to call it to be transformed by Christ as all of life is now meant to be through the power of the Holy Spirit. Our knowledge of the physical universe leads to its transformation by technology. Likewise faith, based on knowledge and love of God, fulfills itself in the complete transformation of Christians. Through them the world created and loved by God is transformed by the action of the Holy Spirit into a new creation. To know God as He has revealed Himself, to live in Him through the worshipping community, to serve Him in the working-out of our lives: this is our faith. Though our words remain inadequate to express the fullness of the reality to which we have been called, they do convey our openness to the mystery of God, even though that mystery has meaning beyond our apprehension of it. For many, the life of faith may be a part of existence added to or superimposed on "real" life. For the Christian, knowing God is so intrinsic to living a human life and living in God is so integral to our very being that without Him we are not fully alive. We become complete persons through our relationship with God and others as we experience it in the faith community. In Christ we realize the true purpose of our nature as our humanity is completed and fulfilled. Henceforth, being human means being destined for divinity, led by the power of the Holy Spirit to be completely transformed after the model of "Him who fills all in all" (Eph 1:23).
Chapter 1 - The Mystery of God God is a mystery - until we admit this we cannot truly know Him. Any claim to have described Him or grasped Him has distorted Him. Today we who search out the secrets of the universe distrust unexplainable mysteries. We boldly seek to define God Himself, but He remains always beyond our power of understanding. Our concepts of God prove inadequate and clinging to them may even destroy our faith, as God exists beyond all the limitations of space and time which bind us. While we seek futilely to grasp at God, it is God who has sought us and revealed Himself in ways that we can only partly understand. And so what we do know of God comes from His revelations to humanity throughout our history. From the beauty and order of nature, thinkers have argued to the existence of a creating principle. But faith requires a leap beyond this to knowledge of a loving and holy Creator. In truth, this can be done only by the favor and power of this Supreme Being. As material creatures, our direct experience of God is limited. As the Gospel says, "No one has ever seen God..." (Jn 1:18). God, however, has revealed Himself in many and varied ways. The Old Testament, as well as other religious traditions, describe many experiences of God. God speaks to the hearts of those who have faith and calls them to knowledge of Himself and of His loving plan for humanity. The testimony of various religions agrees on several attributes of God, our name for the Supreme Being. He is holy, meaning that He is completely other than us. He is infinite and transcendent. He is also good and loving to such a degree that we often call what is good "god-like." As our experience of God grows through faith, we learn how all our ordinary concepts of God are so inadequate. If we think of Him merely as a logical necessity to explain the existence of the universe, then we fail to see the love at work in His plan. If we see Him as an impersonal "force" in the universe, we cannot comprehend the words of the Psalmist, "Taste and see how good the Lord is" (Ps 33/34:9). If we see Him as someone to be invoked only when we are in trouble, then prayers of praise are meaningless. Very often it is such an inadequate concept of God which can hinder true knowledge of Him and even cause people to lose faith. When I deduce that God is not as I thought Him to be, I may conclude by denying there is a God of any kind.
JUST WHAT IS "MYSTERY"? Mysteries both fascinate and frighten us - an instinctive fear of the unknown. Mysteries in the trivial sense of murder mysteries or of puzzles to be solved illustrate how we react to the unknown with a mixture of intrigue and alarm. Puzzles entice us with frustration or exhilaration, depending on our ability to solve them. Mysteries entertain with suspense and fear, forcing us to face our own frailty in the dangers of life and the unknowns of death. These trivial mysteries shed light on the profoundness of life itself as a mystery - both known and unknown, alluring and fearful. Mystery for some is but a metaphor for what is not yet known, for superstition or ignorance. They believe the human mind will some day penetrate the secrets of the universe. However there are limits to our knowledge. How does one, as a part of creation, explain its very existence? - a task which requires an outside perspective. Science in this century has begun to recognize some of the theoretical boundaries of knowledge - of simultaneous position, and velocity of particles, of time as a variable limited by perspective. In the Book of Job we find something similar. God explains that some questions cannot be completely answered by man, "Who is this that confines words in his heart and thinks to conceal them from me’? Where were you when I founded the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding" (Jb 38:2,4 LXX). We cannot answer why we are here, for we did not bring ourselves into existence; nor can we escape the mystery of death to which we are all called. Unless we believe that what we cannot know is meaningless, then we must face mystery. The unknown is frightening but mystery is not simply the unknowable. It is also the hope that what is veiled can be uncovered, at least within the limitations of our nature. St. Paul was able to write, "God gave me the commission to preach among you His word in its fullness: that mystery hidden from ages and generations past, but now revealed to His holy ones" (Col 1:25- 26). Mystery actually implies that answers to our ultimate questions do exist, although we cannot comprehend them. By the very fact of their existence, mysteries call us to transcend our human nature and point towards the infinite.
HIDDEN YET REVEALED We should not despair of knowing anything about God, because He does reveal some of the mystery to us. This itself is an aspect of the mystery: how and why the Unknowable chooses to communicate Himself to us. "[God] causes the changes of the times and seasons, makes kings and unmakes them. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who understand. He reveals deep and hidden things and knows what is in the darkness, for the light dwells with Him ... there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries" (Dn 2:21-23, 28 NAB). However much He reveals Himself, God remains mystery. In the Old Testament God tells Moses, "No one sees my face and still lives" (Ex 33:20). When Moses persisted and asked God for His name, the response was very mysterious. "God replied, ‘I am who am’. This is what you shall tell the children of Israel: ‘I AM sent me to You"’ (Ex 3:14). God’s revelation in this way expresses that what He is in Himself is not knowable through human limitation. The Source of all being or existence cannot be contained by a name. It serves as a caution for any of our concepts of God. None of them can be perfect since we cannot comprehend God as He is in Himself The Tradition continued to stress the impossibility of any creature knowing God in the intimacy of His very being. St. Gregory of Nyssa believed that some knowledge of God is beyond human abilities:
Other Fathers used negative language to describe the indescribable. St. John Chrysostom declared,
St. Maximus the Confessor spoke of this transcendence of God in the strongest terms:
In the anaphora of the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom we still pray the same thought: "You are God: ineffable, inconceivable, invisible, incomprehensible, ever existing yet ever the same." Theologians express this by saying that true knowledge of God is "apophatic": that the essence of God is beyond the understanding of any creature. We know God best when we come to Him by rejecting all false concepts of Him and by continually purifying our idea of God, even though what He is in Himself remains unknowable. This awareness that we cannot completely grasp God is the very means which opens us to infinity. By realizing our imperfection, we can face always towards growth in virtue and wisdom. Perhaps the fact of our limitations is itself the key to our perfection. St. Gregory of Nyssa observed, "It may be that human perfection consists precisely in this constant growth in the good."
IMAGE OF THE "BRIGHT CLOUD" The surprising ways God has appeared illustrate the fullness of His nature. The glory of God often appears as a cloud signifying both clarity and darkness. When God made His covenant with Abraham, "a trance fell upon Abram and a deep, terrifying darkness enveloped him" (Gn 15:12 NAB). When God gave the law to Moses, "the glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai and the cloud covered it for six days. On the seventh day He called to Moses from the midst of the cloud" (Ex 24:16). The Lord appeared to the people of Israel as a cloud leading them from Pharaoh and through the desert to the Promised Land. The prophet Ezechiel described the presence of the Lord in the temple, "... the cloud filled the inner court, and the glory of the Lord rose from over the cherubim to the threshold of the temple; the temple was filled with the cloud, and all the cloud was bright with the glory of the Lord" (Ez 10:4 NAB). When the Lord Jesus was transfigured in glory on Mount Tabor, He and the disciples were overshadowed by a bright cloud (cf Mt 17:5). The cloud is an image of our experience of God. Like a cloud, our knowledge of God is both bright and obscure. St. Gregory of Nyssa describes the process of how we are led through mystery to a greater awareness of God: "Next comes a closer awareness of hidden things, and by this the soul is guided through sense phenomena to the world of the invisible. And this awareness is a kind of cloud, which overshadows all appearances, and slowly guides and accustoms the soul to look towards what is hidden." The image of a cloud has been used widely to represent the mystery of our relationship with God, but God has revealed Himself to people in other ways too. God spoke to Moses "face to face, as a man speaks to his friend" (Ex 33:11). This simple statement shows how mystery does not hide, but reveals. We encounter God in the most ordinary human experiences. Many "theophanies" (manifestations of God) are in Scripture: some with fire, earthquake, and storms. Of course these are only simple images, since He is not one of those things. One of the most powerful theophanies in the Old Testament is the gentle appearance of God to Elijah on Mount Horeb. Elijah is told that God will pass by. A strong and heavy wind, an earthquake and a fire sweep through; but God was in none of these. "... after the fire [there was] a still small voice. And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave" (3/1 Kgs 19:12-13 RSV). The Lord spoke to him there. The still, small voice is our God speaking to our innermost being in quiet and gentleness. These accounts of mankind’s relationship to God remain profoundly true today. Claims of God’s death or irrelevance are made by those who see no great divine manifestations in our modern social storms. Those looking for Him in the spectacular will miss His coming to us on His terms in mystery. Misunderstood images will betray us, for the true mystery of God is beyond all human comprehension.
ICON OF THE INVISIBLE As Christians we believe that the fullness of the revelation of God is in our Lord Jesus Christ, whom we confess as "begotten of the Father before all ages, light of light, true God of true God, begotten not made, of one essence with the Father, through whom all things were made." Thus Jesus Himself is the only adequate image of God. Whoever has seen Him has seen the Father (cf Jn 14:9), for "He is the image of the invisible God" (Col 1:15). The Tradition has identified Christ with the One who revealed His name to Moses. The mysterious name "Who-Am," YHWH in Hebrew, was translated as (o oon) in the Greek Bible, the Septuagint. The fourth Gospel uses this same word for Christ: "No one has ever seen God. The only One [o oon], who is the same as God and is at the Father’s side, he has made him known" (Jn 1:18, TEV). And so we write this Name in the halo surrounding Christ’s head in icons and proclaim in our services, "Blessed is He-Who-Is [o oon], Christ our God..." This revelation in Christ does not make God transparent to us. As Christians we accept the Lord Jesus Christ as the fullness of the revelation of God. Yet on the feast of the Transfiguration (August 6), the Church sings that, on Mount Tabor, Jesus revealed to His disciples only "as much of His glory as they could behold" (troparion). Further, His disciples "beheld as much of His glory as they could" (kontakion). God’s self-revelation to us is limited, not by His love, but by our inability to grasp Him. We can never know God completely, but we can always know Him increasingly better. As He draws us to Himself, we lose our childish and faith distorting concepts of God. We grow to know Him as loving and compassionate, giving Himself to us through Jesus Christ, revealed in the "mystery of mysteries,"6 the Divine Liturgy. Here the Church enters into the saving life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We glimpse the depth and breadth of the reality of God’s love for us and His mystical union with us. While not replacing the broader relationship between God and humanity, the Liturgy becomes the transforming reality of that relationship. One may intellectually search for God, but He has already found us and united Himself to us in ways beyond our human understanding. We can hear the still, small voice of God speaking to our inner being across the ages with His timeless voice of love, and long to be "worthy to partake with a pure conscience of [His] heavenly mysteries,"7 and thus know Him in a way which surpasses the limitations of our mind. We may end this consideration of the meaning of mystery with a prayer that concludes the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil and expresses our desire to enter ever more deeply into the mystery of God:
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Light for Life
God invites us into a relationship with Himself
but He reveals Himself as a community of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We are invited into
this primary community. The famous icon of the Holy Trinity under the form of the
hospitality of Abraham (cf Gn 18:1-15) portrays three angels seated around a table. By the
harmony and blending of the lines of their bodies they form a circle, a unity around the
bread which suggests the Eucharist. The circle remains open, inviting
us to join this community of life and love. By our hospitality to one
another we become god-like. The psalmist exclaimed, "Behold how good and how pleasant
it is, when brethren dwell as
one!" (Ps 132/133:1). The distinguishing mark of the Christian faith remains love for
one another (cf Jn 15:17; 1 In 4:7-13) in the image of the Trinity.
