Course Charting: The Great Mystery

Time has a funny way of taking former ideas and spinning them in unexpected ways.

I’ve already written about my childhood fascination with past and future, dinosaurs, UFOs, and intelligent life beyond our world. Moving into adulthood, many of these ideas suffered from my maturing worldview. I sadly accepted the fact that the world has been thoroughly explored and the only remnants of dinosaurs are the little lizards that scurry away in my presence. The year 2000 came and went, and the world looks an awful lot like it did in the late 1900s. My search for UFOs yielded nothing, the government finally acknowledged the existence of Area 51(that was about as climactic as Y2K), and SETI admitted that the chance of detecting any sign of intelligent life beyond our world was extremely remote. So I moved on to more responsible pursuits, redirecting my attention to more sensible ideas. I went to college and then work, got married, became a parent, and started following the current events of planet Earth.

Still, my sense of mystery remained. Indeed, I was growing up, but I couldn’t shake the notion that there was something else going on; a Greater Reality than the one we perceive with our physical senses; a Great Mystery that defies conventional thinking.

Perhaps surprising to some, it would be my life as a Christian that would rewaken my interest in mystery. Although it’s not so surprising in light of the fact that God had already redeemed my obsession with music. Why not mystery? It happened while studying the Book of Ephesians. In chapter one, I ran across a reference to God’s Mystery. Then I saw it again in chapter three. There I read that this Mystery which was not known in other ages was now revealed to the Apostle Paul. I thought if God had a mystery, kept it hidden for thousands of years, and then revealed it to the apostles, it must be really important; even more important than the existence of intelligent life beyond this world. You can read about it in Ephesians, but I’ll sum it up here.

This is God’s Great Mystery: Human history will end with the submission of all things under the Lordship of King Jesus. Either willingly or not, every creature in heaven, on the earth, and under the earth will ultimately acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord (Philippians 2:9-11). Furthermore, those who were once considered far off from God (all non-Jewish people) now have the opportunity to come back to God by His grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

This may be something of a disappointment to some people. It’s not as mysterious as UFOs, aliens, time-travel, and the like. But if you really think about it, you will see just how staggering it is, for it explains what matters most in life. So what if extraterrestrials landed on Earth? Of course that would be very cool, but what real difference would it make? The Great Mystery does make a difference. It tells us where we are heading. Like it or not, we will all kneel before Jesus and acknowledge Him as King. You can choose to deny it or just ignore it, but that day is coming. And when it does, there will be only two kinds of people — those who kneel willingly out of sincere love and devotion and those who kneel begrudgingly because they will no longer have a choice.

I’ve pondered this Great Mystery for years, but I feel I have only scratched the surface. The implications go deep, touching humanity’s greatest longings, worst fears, and highest hopes and desires. Perhaps only when we pass from this world will we fully understand. But for now, we have been given enough to occupy a lifetime of searching and discovering.