mystery on Unexpected

Eternal God, we recognize that Your ways are mysterious. Teach us to be still and to wait for You. We confess our sinfulness, our need for control, and our discomfort with the unknown. Instead of turn...

Father, Son, Holy Spirit–our God, Mysterious, Awe-Inspiring, Wonderful, One-in-Three/Three-in-One: You surprise us not with flashing lights, loud crashing noises, and constant activity. You surprise u...

Mystery is spoiled by a word.

Preaching Commentary Introduction John 1 contains some of the richest Christological passages in all of Scripture. It rewards deep meditation on its meaning. Its use as the Christmas gospel text is...

The doctrine of the Trinity is not so much a point among many as the very essence and compendium of Christianity itself. It not only presents a lofty and sublime subject of contemplation to the intell...

Do you remember Geraldo Rivera's most famous fiasco? In 1986 he broadcast a television special entitled The Mystery of Al Capone’s Vault. In the publicity leading up to the live opening of Capon...

Things aren't all so tangible and sayable as people would usually have us believe; most experiences are unsayable, they happen in a space that no word has ever entered, and more unsayable than all...

Our age dislikes intensely the idea of mystery because it directly exposes our limitations. The thought that there could be something, or someone, beyond human comprehension or imagining is, of course...

Contradictions can bring us into touch with a deeper longing, for the fulfillment of a desire that lives beneath all desires and that only God can satisfy. Contradictions, thus understood, create the ...

We don’t know what’s going on here. If these tremendous events are random combinations of matter run amok, the yield of millions of monkeys at millions of typewriters, then what is it in us, hammered ...

An elderly man had horrible nightmares, the same event happening over and over in his dreams. He would dream that an enormous green dragon was chasing him, and he would become frantic. Then, just abou...

The cynic won’t be fooled by your snake oil, but their posture also prevents them from being wowed by the transcendent or moved by anything beautiful. They live in a cold universe, a world without mys...

The mystery of life isn’t a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.

The mystery was not something unknowable; it was previously hidden but now revealed—that in Christ, all nations are brought into the one people of God.

Our clawing, grasping attempts at answering every question and making sense of every mystery in life will end up in failure. Instead, God invites us to take a tour of the mad, mad world around us, to ...

J.M. Montgomery’s novel Emily of New Moon has a passage that conveys the attractive and terrifying aspects of the mystery of God: It had always seemed to Emily, ever since she could remember, th...

When we are regularly shamed away from thoughts that venture near spirituality and transcendence, we learn to avoid it altogether, even in our thoughts. We develop a resistance to thoughts that would ...

The atheist author Richard Dawkins, who wrote, “The universe, at the bottom, has no design, no purpose, no evil, and no other good. Nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor care...

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in a...

Praying to an invisible God does not bring forth the same feedback you would get from a counselor or from friends who at least nod their heads in sympathy. Is anyone really listening? As Ernestine, th...

Leader: God of promise, God of Mystery, you have sent a messenger to awaken us.        All: May the promise of your dawn awaken our hearts and minds.       May the light of your promise g...

The secret of God is a bright and not a sad one.

Context Layers The responsible interpretation of any biblical text requires one to consider multiple levels of context, but these contextual strata are especially important to define and explore in ...

Context Layers The responsible interpretation of any biblical text requires one to consider multiple levels of context, but these contextual strata are especially important to define and explore in ...

Karl Barth wrote that, “God is always a mystery. Revelation is always revelation in the full sense of the word or it is not revelation” ( CD  I.8.2). God’s revelation, to Barth, always exists in a dia...

Now, in our lifetime, scientists are finding ever newer evidence for what some religious people called presence in the very organizing energy of the universe—from fractals, to holograms, to electro-ma...

Man is the creature with a mystery in his heart that is bigger than himself.

The final mystery is oneself.

Deep in unfathomable mines Of never ending skill, He treasures up his bright designs, And works his sovereign will.

Forgive us, O God, when we limit you – When we remake you in our image, When we claim our causes as your own, When we box you in, And explain you away, And in our attempts at understanding, whittle aw...