previously on LOST...

Alright, I have to say it... I love this show, I do, and for some you just tooned out or are about to surf on to another website, but hold on... this is not a post about Lost per se. I mean the reason I love the show is the very reason some people don't like it. It's too mysterious, too symbolic, just too much. That's the very thing that is most brilliant about the show. Everything has meaning... the numbers (4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42... you have to watch the show to undestand), the references to literature (Carrie, Alice in Wonderland, and many many others), colors (black, white, red), character's names that reference philosophers (John Locke, Desmond "David Hume", hello?), and about a thousand other things that would take pages to mention... they even have an entire wikipedia site called lostpedia to catalogue all the stuff... and no I am not joking check the link to the right. If you can't tell I am getting pretty pumped about the new season. I have even been watching the entire series on DVD just to get ready. But why am I so fascinated by things like this? I don't really like mystery... The story's good... the characters are believable... but so are a lot of shows. I think it is that everything ties together, everything coincides, everything points to something. And while I believe that anyone, can get into the show and enjoy it without getting into all the mystery and symbolism, there is another level to it.

Christianity is the exact same way. Sure there are some real mysteries to it. I mean it will explode your brain to try and wrap your head around the Trinity, how Christ is 100% God and 100% human, the coorespondence between God's power and sovereignty and our human responsiblity, predestination and free will, and tons of other stuff. For a lot of people these mysteries are just too much. They can't come up with answers and so they jump ship. But think about this: if it were easy to understand or even possible to understand every mystery that God has given us in the Bible what kind of God would He be? The very nature of God implies that He is beyond our total and complete understanding. But He has given us levels where we can all understand. The Westminster Confession of Faith says it pretty well when it says, "All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all: yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation are so clearly propounded, and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them." I know it's in kind of old English, but go with me here. Basically, it says, "Yeah there are some pretty difficult things to understand in Scripture, but the things that are necessary for faith in Christ are right there, plain as day, easy to understand."

So what are we saying? Mysteries are okay for my entertainment, but not for really important, eternal-type things? God has given us the basics, but He does want us to fill our lives learning and asking the tough questions, and living in the tension between mystery and faith. That faith transforms lives. That faith goes beyond human logic and reason, and lives in ways that might seem strange and mysterious. I mean Jesus said to love our enemies and to pray for those that hate you. Jesus said those that wish to be first must first be last. The greatest in the kingdom of heaven is the least here on earth. I don't know about you but that kind of living sounds more exciting, more fulfilling than the mundane and predictable existance that only calls us to live as we are expected to and is totally void of mystery.