A Place for Mystery

Affirmation: I let Mystery have a place in me.

Terry Gross of NPR's Fresh Air was interviewing Bart Ehrman, a professor of religious studies at UNC, Chapel Hill.  He had just written another book.  This one is called How Jesus Became God.  I had a feeling I knew where this interview was going but I love to learn about anything to do with religion, any religion and I love talk radio, so I stayed tuned in.

NPR had this introduction on their web site, "When Bart Ehrman was a young Evangelical Christian, he wanted to know how God became a man, but now, as an agnostic and historian of early Christianity, he wants to know how a man became God.

When and why did Jesus' followers start saying "Jesus as God" and what did they mean by that? His new book is called How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee.

'In this book I actually do not take a stand on either the question of whether Jesus was God, or whether he was actually raised from the dead," Ehrman tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "I leave open both questions because those are theological questions based on religious beliefs and I'm writing the book as a historian.'"

I gave up doubt for this year's Lent this Easter Season.  For me, it's easy to doubt.  It seems to me that our egos are so involved in our identity that most of us believe we need to be able to understand everything.  If we can't understand it, it must not be true.  But, over the years I've discovered I actually understand very little.  There is so much that is simply unknown.  I could list all the questions I have about life and the Universe but I'm sure that you have many of your own.  The simple question about what happens to us after we die is one very prominent unknown.  One of life's greatest mysteries.  I was surprised by my reaction to Professor Ehrman's interview.  I know I have only that segment on which to base my response to his theories but his words left me feeling very sad. 

I did listen carefully.  Certainly his research was very factual.  There didn't seem to be much one could dispute.  He had gathered his facts very carefully.  His research confirmed his beliefs.  Like the web site stated, he had gone from being an Evangelical Christian to an atheist. It appears the New Testament gospel stories about what immediately took place after Jesus died is fictitious.  Oh yes, Jesus was tortured, humiliated and crucified but there was no way he was then taken down from the cross after his death, placed in a tomb and rose three days later.  According to Roman tradition, that's just not how things were done back then.  Back then?  As far as I know that's not how things are done now.  Rising from the dead sure isn't the norm even in today's world. 

Father Alapati of St. Michael's Catholic Church here in Cary recently told a joke as part of his homily.  It appears a gentleman rose one morning to find his obituary in the paper.  He was shocked and immediately called his friend and said, "Did you see my obituary in today's paper?" His friend responded, "Yes, but where are you calling from heaven or hell?" 

Facts supporting the Resurrection would be lovely.  The Apostle Thomas seemed to feel the same way.  "But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe." (John 20: 25) I've always been fascinated by the Apostles.  So afraid, so timid, so uneducated hiding away in a room somewhere, waiting for those angry crowds to come and pull them off to the same torture and death their leader just endured.  I can feel the fear.  I can almost taste it.  We've seen what angry crowds do.  We're watching it now in all parts of the world.  I would be terrified.  What happened to change them so?  What facts can be gathered to explain why they would leave that room and go out into the crowds and begin to preach the Good News?  These men (and let's hope a woman or two) left their safe space and changed the world forever.  How does one explain that?  It's a mystery.

My fellow yoga teacher, friend and mentor, Nancy Hannah, shared with me a saying with which her mother, Bunny Stone, would guide her.  "Let mystery have its place In you."  According to Nancy, her mom was a remarkable woman who made amazing in-roads and created life changing programs here in North Carolina.  In Rachel Remen's The Will to Live and Other Mysteries she writes about the fact that our western culture is more a culture of mastery than mystery but life is more about mystery than mastery. Most of us, however, refuse to recognize the mystery that permeates our lives.  We need to understand all things because by understanding we believe we are in control.  It's a fallacy.  After controlling our thought process, there is very little else of which we are in control. 

How our egos interfere in the really important values of our lives: peace, hope, love, gratitude, compassion and yes, faith.  What facts are available to prove these qualities exist?  Can we ask to place our hands into them, our fingers?  Here is where faith must triumph over facts.  Faith, trust on steroids, is believing in something so completely irrational because one has let go of their ego.  The test here is to decide to believe and to let God work within and through us.  This is when we are called upon to let mystery have its place in us.  I find comfort in my faith.  I find peace.  I like resting in the mystery and not trying to figure it all out.  We might not be able to hold the proof in our hands but if we choose, we can hold it in our hearts.