Meditations from Zion

This was a hopeful moment for me as I read forward from verse seven, that the angel would explain the mystery. Isn’t that what we all want in end? Don’t we want to understand the mystery of life, of pain, of danger, of sorrow, of hatred, of love? It’s all mystery.

Revelation 17:6b-7
When I saw her, I was greatly astonished. Then the angel said to me: “Why are you astonished? I will explain to you the mystery of the woman and of the beast she rides, which has the seven heads and ten horns. . . ”

But alas, even if that angel would come into my office and sit next to me and hold my hand: I would have no clearer understanding of the “woman” or the “beast” or the heads or the horns. This is puzzle for the academicians, the students of the Bible, the prophets, the eschatologists. I don’t know about you but phrases like, “[the beast] once was, now is not, and yet will come up out of the Abyss and go to its destruction,” is not very helpful. Just more mystery.

I don’t think anyone can explain the mystery. If it was possible, then the mystery would stop being a mystery.

Oh, I know people read mysteries because they like trying to figure it out. And they are all so gratified when the story is wrapped up at the end. But then, what do they do? Go out and buy another mystery.

Like a small child, we keep asking “why” to questions whose answers cannot be fathomed.

It’s a mystery because it’s outside of time. It’s a mystery because it’s not human. It’s not gravity or E=MC2. It’s like wrapping our minds around eternity or the universe or a quantum. The scientists are working hard to “understand” the mystery and many religious are working equally hard to quantify what cannot be quantified, to “prove” creationism or “end-of-the-worldism.” It all falls in the same pot for me.

I believe God wants me to embrace the mystery. That’s all. So simple. Another way to do that is to live in the moment and accept it for what it is: now. God has me here now. I am in this chair, I am writing these words, I am tired, I am with God and God is with me. And isn’t that just as much a mystery?