OUR MYSTERIOUS GOD

Fr Luke A Veronis

Our Mysterious God.

I woke up yesterday to the sad news from one of our parishioners, Diana Megas, who asked for prayers for her brother, Danut, who was in a terrible car accident in Romania. He is on life support. I told her that I would share with our Church Family this very sad and difficult news and ask everyone to please pray for a miraculous healing for her brother Danut, and to pray for comfort and strength for all her family – for Danut’s wife and children, her elderly parents for whom he cares, and of course for Diana and Natalie and Alexis.

Our Mysterious God.

As I was praying for Danut yesterday, I was also reflecting on the visit of Fr. Paul Abernathy this past weekend and thinking about the stories he shared about life in the Hill District in Pittsburgh. I heard Fr. Paul speak three times at our Church, and then three times at Holy Cross School of Theology, and at each talk I heard different stories of pain and suffering, stories of violence and trauma, stories of darkness and hopelessness from the Hill District, and yet in the midst of such darkness he shared the mystery of offering hope and light in a place of despair.

Our Mysterious God.

I then picked up the book that Fr. Paul wrote, “The Prayers of a Broken Heart: An Orthodox Christian Perspective on African American Spirituality.” I’m only at the beginning of the book, and yet I’m understanding how one common element of Orthodox and African American Spirituality is the significant role of redemptive suffering which is highlighted in Jesus Christ, God Incarnate. Our Lord came to earth to to willingly follow the path of suffering and to die on the Cross, yet He showed us that “through the Cross joy will come into the world,” through the mystery of suffering comes the mystery of Risen Jesus’ victory over suffering and sin, over darkness and death itself.

Our Mysterious God reveals to us paths in life that we can’t always comprehend.

When I think of all the suffering in the world – from the tragedy of a young man in an unexpected car accident to the trauma experienced by an entire community of people in the poor and marginalized Hill District of Pittsburgh to the suffering of innocent civilians in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel, in Ukraine and Russia to the suffering of countless people throughout the world and all around us – I repeat what I often say. “Life is a Mystery.” We don’t understand why things happen in the world and we often see how unfair life can be.

Yet, just as I point out Life is a Mystery, I also need to remind us that “God Himself is a Mystery.” God is a Mysterious God whom we can never fully understand. His ways are far beyond our ways and we will never fully fathom our Infinite God. In the midst of this Mystery, however, He has revealed to the world that He is with us. We are never alone. He is in ultimate control, and He will have the final word in this world of uncertainty.

How can we ever hope to understand the Mysterious Creator of the Universe who condescends to become a human being? How can we ever fully comprehend the Almighty One who willingly accepts to humble Himself to the point of entering into the worst human suffering by dying on a Cross? How can we accept the Eternal One to lay dead in a tomb for three days, to experience the darkness of death itself, all for the salvation of a world that rejected and hated Him?

Our God is a Mysterious God indeed! Yes, our God is a Mysterious God who confronts the Mystery of Life and through it gives us hope. We never despair because we know He will have the final word. He is in control. And we are in His care!

That is why this Mysterious God expects us to face whatever the mystery of life brings with thanksgiving and gratitude. “Rejoice in the Lord always. Pray without ceasing. And give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus.” These words of Saint Paul are a part of the mystery of faith that the great Apostle talks about throughout his ministry.

We see this clearly in today’s Gospel story of the Ten Lepers. These were men who faced the worst mystery of life in their time. They were stricken with the most dreaded disease of leprosy that slowly ate away their body and killed them, but in the process this horrible illness, they were ostracized from their family and friends and all of society. They lived as dreaded and despised outcasts who would die alone. What more miserable death could there be?

Yet our Lord Jesus, the Mysterious God made man, has compassion on them and heals them. He gives them new life. He casts off their disease and their old nature and not only heals them but gives them an opportunity to experience new life.

The healed lepers react to the miraculous mystery with only one out of ten returning to praise God and to thank Jesus. Only one out of ten show gratitude!

Here lies another mystery of life – how ungrateful we are to our Mysterious God of Mercy.

I think of the challenging words of Henri Nouwen in moments like this – “To be grateful for the good things that happen in our live is easy, but to be grateful for all of our lives – the good as well as the bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow, the successes as well as the failures, the rewards as well as the rejections – that requires hard spiritual work. Still, we are only truly grateful people when we can say thank you to all that has brought us to the present moment… The choice for gratitude rarely comes without some real effort… There is an Estonian proverb that says: “Who does not thank for little will not thank for much.” Acts of gratitude make one grateful because, step by step, they reveal that all of life is grace.”

Life is a Mystery. God is a Mysterious God. And our Mysterious God guides us to never despair in whatever this mystery of life bring. He is with us. He is in control. And thus, we are to embrace the Mystery of Life with the spirit of gratitude and thanksgiving.

Glory to God for all things!