Living with Mystery

 

Article by Father Jonathan E Moore - Link HERE

Living with Mystery

Being a Lincolnshire man, born and bred, I feel great affection for my native County's famous sons and daughters, not least the great physicist Sir Isaac Newton. His body is buried  in Westminster Abbey, graced with an epitaph written by the poet Alexander Pope:

"Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night: God said: "Let Newton be, and all was light!"

Present Day physicists are wise not to claim their ability to "make all things light". A prudent man of science acknowledge the truth that there is more to the universe than any human mind is capable of understanding or describing. They identify what Professor Stephen Hawking called "paradoxes, anomalies and inconsistencies" which defy the Laws of Physics as we know them. Hawking described the things which don't  behave the way scientists think as "mistakes" and "imperfections".

Believers, of course, would give another name to that which is beyond all scientific investigation and definition - and that is GOD.

To describe things we can't understand as "mistakes and inconsistencies" can never be good enough for someone with faith. Three hundred years ago, people believed that Isaac Newton had answered all the questions about the way the universe worked. Later scientists, notably Einstein, showed that even the great Newton had made his mistakes. What of the scientists today, can they really hope to answer all the questions? Could it not be that, where they find "anomalies and inconsistencies", the mistake is in their own theories and calculations? Might it not be that there is an intelligence infinitely greater than theirs behind creation? When you come to think about it, is it any easier to believe that everything started in a huge, chaotic explosion of matter than it is to believe in an intelligent Creator of heaven and earth?

Think about a great work of art such as the Mona Lisa or the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Would it make sense to suggest that either had come about as the result of an explosion in a paint factory? Surely it would make more sense to recognise and appreciate the skill of the artist who used paint with such skill and intelligence.

Then again, who could look at a magnificent piece of engineering like a space rocket or a massive suspension bridge, and suggest that it was merely the result of a freak whirlwind hitting a scrap yard?

Truth to tell, nobody believes in nothing . Some people who would describe themselves as "non-believers" have faith in science or political philosophy. They are the sensible ones, others believe in "Ley Lines", crystals, fairies, dragons and lucky charms. As G. K. Chesterton shrewdly observed: "When people stop believing in God, they don't believe nothing, they believe ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING!"

This much is sure, science, politics and philosophy have changed many times in the last two thousand years, and they go on changing. The Good News alone is unchanged and unchanging. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and for ever. (Hebrews 13:8)

We have seen in recent weeks that Our Lord's teaching was, in its own time, often seen to be "inconsistent" with what others wanted to believe. He said much that was "paradoxical". As I've remarked before, in the end, He could only be judged to be mad, bad or God, no other conclusion was, or is, possible. For Jewish people in those days, what they termed the "Son of Man" (Bar Nasha) was a superhuman, all-conquering hero whose "glorification" would be conclusive victory over the armies of all "The Nations", and rule over all the world as an absolute monarch. Jesus, however, while describing Himself as "Son of Man" spoke of a very different "glorification" which involved rejection, condemnation, crucifixion, death and failure. He would be "lifted up", but His throne would be a rough wooden cross on top of a rubbish tip, and His crown would be made of thorns. Like a grain of wheat He must die and be buried in the ground in order to rise again.

It took a lot of faith for even his closest friends to accept this. Saint Peter himself struggled with the very idea. At the Transfiguration, Peter, James and John had glimpsed His divinity for one blinding and glorious instant, but now back down the mountain, they had to cope with a very different reality. There had to be death before resurrection, the cross before kingship. Each of them faced the same inevitable question: who is wrong, Jesus or me? One or the other had to be mistaken. This is the ultimate "acid test" of faith, and none of us escapes it. Like poor old Job, in the end we must either reject God, or put our finger to our lips and stand silent in the presence of mystery.

A theology professor, under whom I studied many moons ago, used to say that an appropriate "signature tune" for God would be the song "I was born under a Wandering Star" because He is like the horizon - you reach that distant point only to find another horizon. God is like an ever-flowing spring: however many times we satisfy our thirst, we can never drink it all. The Prophet Isaiah (Chapter 58:11) speaks of God giving us "A spring of water whose waters never run dry." People have sometimes asked me "Won't eternity be boring?"- I don't believe it will, you know. If there are always new horizons presented by God's love which is "new every morning", then we will be caught up in the greatest of adventures, as Cardinal Newman wrote "hearing no longer the busy beat of time".

Our Lenten readings have been very much about living with questions, embracing mystery, going by faith and not by sight. To be silent before God, to accept that there are mysteries far beyond our understanding, to live with the questions we can't answer - these are the non-negotiable "Terms and Conditions" of Christian Faith.

And what of the non-believers? In Eucharistic Prayer IV, we pray for all those who seek God "in sincerity of heart". In seeking the Truth, unknowingly people seek Him, for God is Truth. In the General Intercessions on Good Friday afternoon the Church prays that those who do not acknowledge God may sincerely follow what is right, thus finding the way to God Himself. I think we should be making that prayer all the year long, don’t you?

Fr. Jonathan Moore

The End of Lent

Another Lent

Is almost spent.

Would someone tell me

Where it went?

How forty days

So swift are spent?

Life, Falcon-fast

Is flashing by,

And Lent is spent,

And man must die...

Remember, though,

What follows Lent -

How Jesus Christ

Could not be pent

By stone, a seal

And armoured main,

But, Easter-early,

Rose again.

O Risen Saviour,

Raise us too,

And bid us ever,

Live with You.

 JEM