Some years ago, a friend was in a hurry to get to work on what had turned out to be a very foggy morning. As he approached a familiar intersection he noticed that the fog was particularly thick; he could barely see beyond the end of his hood. Because he was in a hurry and because he trusted his instincts he just plowed on through. Sure enough, somewhere in the foggy cloud, just beyond his ability to see, there was a stalled car and he plowed right into it.

That's the way some people approach mystery. They just irreverently plow on through it hoping things will turn out all right. Others take pause and enter into the mystery very slowly as they ponder the meaning of what they are experiencing but can neither see nor understand.

If you are the former, the type that is frustrated by mystery, this next five weeks before Easter may be difficult for you. We are about to discuss, study and celebrate some of the greatest mysteries of our faith. If, however, you are the type who loves a mystery and you find your faith enriched more by what you cannot know or understand than by what you can, this next five weeks should be the high point of your spiritual year. Again, we are about to discuss, study and celebrate some of the greatest mysteries of our faith.

How would you have handled what was given to Peter, James and John as Jesus invited them to share what no other human had ever seen? Two spiritual giants, Moses and Elijah, both dead for centuries, appeared on what is commonly known as the Mount of Transfiguration and had a conversation with Jesus about his impending death and resurrection, right there in front of Peter, James and John. To make matters more mysteriously worse or better, depending on your perspective, "a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud." Would you have entered the cloud or just offered to stay back and watch the camels? What if they hadn't entered the cloud? Watch what happens next. As they entered the cloud, "from the cloud came a voice that said, 'This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!'"

This was an experience not at all unlike the one Abram had centuries before, before he was known as Abraham. He was fretting to God over who would inherit his estate. As it stood, he had no children of his own and one of his slaves, a non-Israelite, was the next in line to benefit from probate. God appears to Abram in a vision and talks to him about his plans to make of his natural offspring, yet to be conceived, a countless number of heirs through whom God would bless all mankind. Somewhere in all of this, Abram fell asleep and, as the scripture says, "a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him." As the scripture goes on to report, "On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram."

My first response to reading this is to say that, even if it were terrifying, at least Abram got some sleep! Why is it that, the older we get, the harder it is to sleep? Why is it, too, that the further along we get into journey into faith, the harder it is to believe that God is a God of mystery? How is it that the routine of worship either dulls our senses or we so incorporate what we believe into the natural course of living that we lose touch with the mystery of all that God is? Just as it was in the cloud that the apostles heard the Father's blessing on his Son Jesus as the savior, so it was in the deep and terrifying darkness that God made his covenant with Abram, a covenant that, in time, brought us our savior. Maybe we, too, need some experience outside the norm to awaken us to mystery. Otherwise, it could be just another Easter this year.

What do we do with the mystery of everything we are about to celebrate? What do we do with the mystery of how God could take all the sin of all mankind and put it on his only Son Jesus" back and that one man could bear our sins away for eternity? What was it that happened in that deep and terrifying darkness that descended on the whole earth as Jesus was dying on the cross? What happened in the deep and terrifying darkness of the tomb as Jesus lay there, waiting to be raised again? What do we do with the mystery of how Jesus died and three days later rose from the grave? What do we do with this Supper we celebrate? Do we really believe that by consuming stale crackers and grape juice something spiritual is transacted between us and Holy God? Or, do we just plow on through, Sunday after Sunday, Lord's Supper after Lord's Supper, not even caring anymore, as long as we're out by noon?

More specifically, what do we do with the deep and terrifying darkness that can sometimes become of our lives and consume us in the middle of any given day? Do we just hunker down and plow on through? Or, do we stop and listen to see if, in the mystery, God may have blessed us with the very experience that awakens us from our sleep to hear what he might be speaking to us? Does God speak to us now, like he did to Abram and Moses and Elijah and Peter and James and John? Or, are those just wonderful old stories?

As we ponder the creation of each worship opportunity week in and week out, one thing has become clearer to me than ever. There is something deep within all of us that hungers for worship in which we celebrate the mystery of our faith, not just mindlessly plow through it. From my vantage point, the people who gather in this place to worship each week, by and large, don't want the preacher to answer all of their questions but to ask as many as he answers and walk with them into the mystery.

Aaron Shust gives voice to that hunger for mystery, and what the mystery holds for us, with these words from his song, "My Savior My God." I am not skilled to understand, what God has willed, what God has planned. I only know at his right hand, stands one who is my savior. I take him at his word and deed. Christ died to save me this I read. And in my heart I find a need, for him to be my savior.

Look with me at the stained glass on each side of these sanctuary walls, would you? Do you see it? The colors of the glass actually blur the light. If we wanted to see clearly, we should take out the stained glass and let the light come through uninterrupted. Or, we could go outside and look at the glass from the other view. From that angle, the glass is dull, almost colorless. It's only as the light passes through what tends to distort it that we see its real beauty. Only when the straight, pure beam is fragmented and broken down are we able to see the rainbow it truly is. We don't like the deep and terrifying darkness that is sometimes life. We don't like walking in a fog. Yet, I tell you, God often reveals himself to us there, and we see the light more clearly when it is distorted and fragmented by mystery, than if it were to shine straight into our eyes.

In the summer of 2005, we found ourselves in The Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia, standing just inches from Rembrandt's oil on canvass, The Return of the Prodigal Son. A number of things amazed me about that experience. How did that painting survive all these centuries since the master of Dutch Golden Age painted it ca. 1662? It amazed me that I could stand as close as I was able to from a priceless piece of art. I could have literally reached out and touched it. I don't know what would have happened next, but I could have touched it had I chosen to. It amazed me to see how Rembrandt took so many different shades of color to paint virtually every human emotion that must have existed the day the father's long lost son came home.

You can't see the son's face; it's buried into the father's bosom as the son kneels to ask forgiveness. Because you can't see the son's face, it makes you know that his face could have been yours or mine. You can only see the back of his head, the son's head partly balding from all the horror he'd been through in his journey into sin. You can see the Father's face and there is no way to describe the passion in it. Most of all, you can't miss the Father's hands as the father has them laid over the son's weeping shoulders onto his back. It's just that the hands are not the same. One hand is rough, like a man's. The other is smooth, like a woman's. Rembrandt painted it that way for a reason.

Henri Nouwen wrote an entire book about that one painting. This is what Nouwen says about those two hands. "As soon as I recognized the difference between the two hands of the father, a new world of meaning opened up for me. The Father is not simply a great patriarch. He is mother as well as father. He touches the son with a masculine hand and a feminine hand. He holds, and she caresses. He confirms and she consoles. He is, indeed, God, in whom both manhood and womanhood, fatherhood and motherhood, are fully present" (Henri Nouwen, Return of the Prodigal Son, Doubleday, 1992).

Most of all, the thing I remember most about standing there that day staring at Rembrandt's Prodigal was something else altogether. Never before in my life had a piece of art captured my heart as did that one. It drew me into itself, as though I became the part of the story Jesus intended when he first told the story. I found myself lost in the mystery of how God can love me so very, very much. So much that, no matter how far I travel, I can never reach the outer boundary of his infinite mercy and that he's always waiting when I come home. That no matter how terrible my sin, I can never bankrupt his love for me. I could feel the Father's hands, holding me, pulling me into his bosom, glad to have me back.

Even now, as I speak, there is a man in this room who, about five years ago, confessed to me his inability to step toward Christ in faith because he couldn't understand the mystery of it all. He still had so many unanswered questions. I confessed that the mystery sometimes overwhelmed me as well but that, to me, that was the essence and even the joy of faith, to walk toward the mystery even when you can't see very far. I told him that I would walk him if he'd like and the next step he took was into the baptismal waters of this church.

My only choice, and yours, is whether we will stay out in the darkness of sin, or walk toward the mystery of God's love, a love that sometimes reveals itself to us in deep and terrible ways, and experience there the mystery of the resurrection. I wouldn't miss what we are about to walk into for anything! How about you?