Coffee With Sister Vassa: OPENING UP TO 'MYSTERY' AS WE AGE

Coffee With Sister Vassa

OPENING UP TO “MYSTERY” AS WE AGE 

 

“However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature (ἐν τοῖς τελείοις), yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. But we speak the wisdom of God, in mystery, and (which was) hidden, and which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” (1 Cor 2: 6-8)

The “wisdom of God,” spoken by the Apostles and their successors “in mystery,” was indeed once “hidden” from all, “before the ages.” But it is not un-knowable, nor does it remain “hidden,” having been revealed (and continuing to be revealed) in the Person of Jesus Christ, to the “mature” or the τελείοις, which can also be translated as “full grown” or “finished.” I like the last translation, because as we age and are broken in a way, by our personal and communal tragedies, we tend to become “finished” with playing the power-games of our earlier years and to open up more to the power of God.  

When we talk about “mystery” in our Tradition, we do not mean, contrary to a popular misconception, something un-knowable to us. Mystery is something that is meant to entice us to discover its meaning; to receive the revelation of Truth and Light that is “hidden” in Jesus Christ, insofar as one doesn’t have the eyes to “see” Him for Who He is. Mystery, in our Tradition, also requires “mystagogy” (“μυσταγωγία” in Greek, or “introduction/initiation into the mystery”), which means that we need others to “introduce” us to, or lead us into, the knowledge of God’s wisdom, revealed in our Lord Jesus Christ. That is why, traditionally, the explanations of the “mystery” of the Eucharist, (like the one written by St. Maximus the Confessor in the 7th c.), are called “mystagogical.” And that is why our joys and sorrows on the cross-carrying journey, as we follow our vocation, can also be called “mystagogical,” because through them we “mature” in the deifying knowledge of our Lord and the Mystery of His death-trampling Way.

Let me be enticed by that which is concealed, “in mystery,” that I allow myself to be “led into” it, by the grace-filled “mystagogy” of living Tradition. Lord, I want to know more, not of the “wisdom” of “the rulers of this age,” who keep changing each election-cycle, but of Your unchanging wisdom. Help me be teachable today, and open to learning Your mysteries.