I am proposing that such alertness to the possibility of discovering more than the obvious meanings in a biblical text is necessary, in part, because mystery, surprise, and expectation are inherently theological. They connote an ineffable otherness that (some would say who) moves like the wind, that may be seen only after it has passed in review, that seems to appear in masquerade, and that hides out amidst the lowly of the earth—an otherness that surprises us along the contours of mystery, and bestirs us to a threshold of expectation.
