Beholding the Mystery

by Daniel S. Trout

One of the great abilities God has given human beings is the power of recollection.  Recollection (or remembrance) not only gives our lives continuity, but instills in us a wish to preserve—through various tokens—memories of events, things and people that gave significance to the past.  All of our homes contain pictures and various objects to commemorate what or who has been, bringing either joy or sorrow—perhaps both concurrently.  What we often forget is that, as Christians in worship, we do something quite similar, although probably less consciously and (sadly) more neglectfully.  As the Church, we, too, have a memory—the Holy Spirit who dwells within us all, working in and through us to sustain the reality of the risen Christ in ours minds, and to thereby foster in our hearts the desire to worship Him.  Thus illuminated, we Anglicans rejoice that we pray, not just as Anglicans have always prayed, but as the Church since ancient times has done the liturgy to proclaim our Lord and be united with Him and all the host of heaven through the Word, the sacraments, and the many symbols and hymns of our Faith.  Having observed this, we face an important question—Do we continue the great Tradition because, as with the pictures and souvenirs in homes, we want to memorialize the past and/or tell a story about ourselves, or are we presenting something that goes beyond time and space itself?

As traditional Anglicans, this point is so salient because the modern critics of our Faith would judge us by history with questionings into a hazy past.  Was there a Jesus crucified at Golgotha?  Did He rise again and ascend into heaven?  Are the Scriptures a reliable witness?  Especially as Easter approaches—when the television specials abound—the Church’s best response is no prepared defense or argument, but an intentional and faithful representation of Jesus Christ that speaks for itself.  Our work as Christians is more than to keep alive a memory of what we believe historically was, but to manifest before our eyes what supernaturally is for all eternity.  Yes, we are part of a story grounded in history, but it would only be a good story were it not for the reality of the glorified Christ manifesting Himself from heaven into our temporal sphere.  Jesus does not depend on any assembled case we can muster, but benevolently offers Himself ever-new, just as He did through the initial incarnate action in Mary’s womb.  Doubts about historicity should not concern the Church because, through our worship, our eyes are continually opened to see by faith the Truth that science and critical methodologies cannot broach. 

This is why, after all, the crucifix and other symbols in the church building are unveiled in Holy Week: to reveal the majesty of God’s grace hidden for millennia and still (at best) an ambiguity to our contemporary world.  In addition to the wonder of the Blessed Sacrament, God gives us these visuals—often called sacramentals—because we are witnessing the mystery of Jesus Christ in our midst.  With crosses, icons, candles, vestments, and more we simultaneously see and show the substance of God’s gracious splendor that reminds, and yet infinitely transcends mere memory.  God is always unveiled to us because, as Paul writes, “We all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory” (2 Corinthians 3:18).  Therefore, to be Christians means (as the Church always has) to invest ourselves in this active remembrance: for within a realm of sacred space God’s Energies take form to disclose His saving Truth, and by it, shape us into a worshiping people transfixed by the glorious revelation which angels desire to look into.