Burky's Blog

No Hidden Mystery, by Phil Ware

This is not a show I have regularly watched -- in fact, we decided it
was a show we wouldn't watch because the humor and story lines were
built on lives out of control as families imploded from the lack of
direction, purpose, morals, and genuine hope. But, this episode of
"Desperate Housewives" caught my attention from the previews.

One of the housewives is truly desperate for some answers. She has
survived cancer and a tornado and she doesn't understand why she gets
to survive to be with her kids and husband who need her. She is drawn
to church to try to get some answers about God and what is going on in
her life and what He is wanting to do with her. However, she hasn't
been to church before and she doesn't know how she is supposed to act
in the worship time. What happens basically shows her frustration with
wanting some hope and help from God and the church folks responding by
.. well, just doing church by their unexplained rules. No one,
including the minister, knows how to respond to her. Yet underneath is
a genuine need, maybe even a yearning, to find God and get some help
and hope from Him.

What are we to do with a searching and seeking world that doesn't know
the right questions to ask or the way to "behave" in church? What do we
do with people who are seeking, yet don't even know the "acceptable
kinds of questions" to ask in church? How do we remove the cloak of
mystery and how do we pull down the walls of secrecy that keep people
in the dark to the love of their yet to be discovered Savior? How do we
keep from being irrelevant to the people who are desperate to know God?

As Paul tries to help a bunch of confused new believers in Colossae, he
talks about the mystery of God that had been hidden for ages, but was
now revealed for everyone (Colossians 1:24-29;Colossians 2:1-3). This
mystery is NOT supposed to be a secret! These new believers shouldn't
let anyone tell them they needed some secret knowledge or rigorous
rituals and additional rules or additional worship days to add to the
simple and astounding truth. And what is this great secret? What is
this great truth? "Christ in you, the hope of glory ..." (Colossians
1:27 TNIV) "... in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge" (Colossians 2:3).

I love how "The Message" paraphrases this:

God wanted everyone ... to know this rich and glorious secret
inside and out, regardless of their background, regardless of their
religious standing. The mystery in a nutshell is this: Christ is in
you, therefore you can look forward to sharing in God's glory. It's
that simple. That is the substance of our Message (Colossians
1:26-27).

Who can teach us to give hope to folks who feel church is irrelevant?

Okay, so how does that help us with the questions the world is asking
us? Who can help us know how to respond to people who don't know our
religious rules? Who can teach us to give hope to folks who feel church
is irrelevant?

Simple. We are driven back to Jesus. We are to listen to His voice and
do what He calls us to do. Even more importantly, we are to listen,
speak, love, touch, care, and cry with others like Jesus did. The
failure of the "What Would Jesus Do?" fad was not that it was a fad,
but that most who wore the bracelets didn't take time to find out what
Jesus actually did. They were seeking answers inside themselves just
like the often well-intentioned but self-destructive non-believer. Yet
the largest chunk of our New Testament is about tearing down the veil
of secrecy that separates us from God and revealing the mystery of
grace in Jesus.

And what would Jesus have done with our desperate Housewife? Oh sure,
our quick and easy answer is that the Lord would instantly heal her
cancer. But I want to challenge you to go back to the gospels (Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John in the New Testament) and take a closer look at how
Jesus responded to folks -- then share an answer or two with all of us
based on What Jesus Did! Oh, and I'll share some of my response with
you a couple of days from now on my blog if you will share yours!