It's a Mystery

This is the e-message that went out yesterday God's people at St. Timothy Lutheran Church. This is my first impression of the gospel reading for this coming Sunday.

26 He also said, "The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, 27 and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. 28 The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. 29 But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come." Mark 4:26–29


Who doesn't like a good mystery, the kind with multiple layers of intrigue in the plot? My favorites are mystery stories that let me think I know the answer to the who dun it. Then as you progress through the story you become more or less sure of  your conclusion. You go through many twists and turns in the plot until you reach the end of the story and...that's the culprit? I certainly didn't see that coming.

In many ways, life in Christ has its share of mysteries. We think we know how God may be leading or what is happening in an individual's life and then--BAM--God comes on the scene and we are blown away by the way God has worked in the situation.

Martin Luther liked to talk about deus absconditus, the "hidden God." The paradox of the cross teaches that the ways of God are hidden, even in the revelation of Jesus Christ. "...the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how" (v. 27). God's work in the lives of people and the situations they find themselves in is a mystery. We do not have to have all the answers, but we know the One who does.

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