Christen asked what she described as a 'lame' question. I suspect it is the most profound one we can ask, so thanks for putting it out there.

I don't like going to the dentist. I'm better now than I used to be; irrational fear turned to more  realistic anxiety.  It means that I feel very virtuous when I make the appointment. There's no doubt that it's a good choice, the doubt comes from whether I will keep the appointment. In fact, until I'm actually in the chair, there is always the risk that I'll find some 'good' reason to postpone or cancel.

That's why Jesus 'had' to die. Because until the moment of his death, there was the possibility of him changing his mind. In fact, even when he was on the cross, he was  tempted him to do just that. "Come down from the cross, save yourself, then we'll believe you". 

So the question quickly morphs into this one: 

To answer that we need a bit of background. God created us to be recipients and givers of divine love because he is in nature, 'love'. We were created 'in God's image', we were like him in character (though not in attributes - for example, whilst I can readily make a mess, I can't make a universe). In this way, God provided everything we needed to enjoy life to the full and for ever.

Now at the heart of love is the freedom to choose. Paul writes that 'love does not insist on it's own way'. And we see that built into the heart of creation - God puts us in a garden in which there are two trees; one leads to life, the other to death. Like any loving Father, he gives boundaries, clearly stating the consequence of each choice, but then, out of love, gives the power to choose.

First Adam (the Bible's description for mankind) is tempted by Satan to become like God in attributes as well as character. Always impressed by power, reach and knowledge, the enemy thinks we will be too and tempts mankind to be like God in areas of His knowledge. He was right. In a garden, First Adam grasped at what wasn't his, at what he didn't need and in so doing, broke relationship with God. Previously everything we needed came from God, he gladly supplied it, not to control, but to bless. Now, we have all the needs that we had before, but we can't receive what we need from God. We will have to work for them, making do with paltry substitutes; security instead of peace, entertainment instead of joy, pleasure instead of fulfilment, living instead of life.

And because we have handed over the power we received to the enemy, he has authority to act directly against us, enslaving us, blinding us to the real situation, creating a worldview that thinks these substitutes are the real thing, that our dissatisfaction can be overcome by acquiring more of them. So we live in a world where death is all around, creating pain, suffering, disease and every evil thing. 

God knew at the outset that this was a possibility, that mankind, against all reason, might choose the way of death. Of course, one of the lies the enemy has sown is that it was inevitable. That it was impossible for mankind to always live in perfect relationship with God. that somehow the fall was built into the fabric of creation and that rather than being our choice, our responsibility, it is in some way God's fault. First Adam took the same view "The woman you gave me, she did it"

Talk about tough choices.  Knowing  in principle the pain and awful suffering it would cause, God's considered view was that the joy of us living in perfect relationship with him and each other was worth the potential pain. Even when the rescue plan included coming in person and bearing the consequences himself. More than that, He believed that in the end, when all things were concluded, we would freely agree.

In Genesis 1:2 it talks about the 'spirit of God brooding' John puts it like this in his gospel 'In the beginning was the conversation'. From the outset, God counted the cost, evaluated the options and chose to commit to creation. It's the equivalent of making the call to the dentist. The plan is in place should it be needed.

If Jesus accepts the role of Last Adam, he will come to earth, choosing persistently, in the face of awful temptation, to empty himself of his rights, his attributes as God. He will become just like that First Adam, proving that it was possible to have resisted the temptation. He will declare that this is what he is doing by identifying with humanity through baptism, he will be born like any other baby, he will grow up and learn like any other boy. And just as Adam was tempted in a garden, so will Jesus be. Just as Adam had a choice of life or death, so in Gethsemane, Jesus will have the same choice; death on a cross or rescue from that cross by 12 legions of angels. 

And in that garden, the commitment made in Genesis must be turned into reality. That which seemed worth it in theory must now be re-evaluated in the face of it's actuality. Jesus sweats blood over the choice.  No temptation ever greater. No question harder to answer.

And the answer, so straightforward in eternity, becomes impossibly demanding in his broken humanity. Redemption waits. Only if Last Adam persists in choosing to live as First Adam will death be defeated. Not the casual choosing of that First Adam, but the deliberate forcing of will into compliance. A choosing that commands every tearing sinew into obedience whilst every fibre of being demands him to turn away from the cross. He sweats blood and his friends sleep.

In the midst of that agony, the mob arrives and Judas kisses him. Jesus looks beyond the crowd, beyond the cross and looks into your eyes. Your fallen, broken, sinful, hopeful, downtrodden, exalted eyes and decides. Holding out his arms, almighty God chooses. For the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross. The joy of breaking open a way for you and him to be in eternal loving relationship, starting now.

And in dying, the choice is forever sealed. It cannot be revoked, that's why he had to die. Even in the face of death, Last Adam persisted in identifying with humanity,being like God intended, demonstrating that it was possible. And by that, simultaneously judging the sinful choice of First Adam and at the same time, undoing it. 

Now we get the chance to do the same. Just as Jesus identified with us, becoming like us, so we can identify with him and become like him. We can choose to die; to our old ways, thought patterns, learned emotional responses, to our agenda, to our view of what is right and wrong. We can choose to die to past hurt, refusing to be directed by it, refusing to be indebted to those who hurt us. Identifying instead with God's view of us. agreeing with his agenda, his thoughts, his feelings. And as we choose to die, so we receive power to become children of God, growing up and learning to hear his voice, understand his ways, learning to trust him to be the provider of our deepest needs.  We grow into a freedom, a fullness of life, a peace and a joy that makes the dying seem inconsequential.

And when we finally die, those choices are sealed, irrevocable and God gives us what we have chosen. Unfettered relationship with him and all who love him; life for ever, in all it's glory and wonder. life without death or any of the symptoms of death. 

Just as it was for Jesus, this is not a casual choice, nor a one off choice. It is a deliberate, blood-sweating choice that needs to be made day by, day, moment by moment, until you die. 

Moses said "See, I set before you today, blessing and curse, life and death. Therefore choose life"  He understood it, he decided.   Joshua said "As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord".  He understood it, he decided.  Paul said "For me, to live is Christ, to die is gain" He understood it, he decided. 

Now you've heard it too....

My dad, who is almost 89, has a particular response to technology. He looks at the mobile phone and asks where the film goes for the camera bit. He has a paradigm for how things work and when something doesn't fit that paradigm it becomes a block. It's not just that he doesn't understand it, he refuses to engage or use it. He can't understand it, ergo it is unusable. Even though he can see that it does what we say it does, because it doesn't fit his worldview, it can't do it and if it can't do it, there's no point learning to use it. 

I'm not that extreme. Yet. But I guess I've inherited a similar determination to understand; I'm much more pragmatic, if it works, I'll use it, but I still want to know how - and still have an inbuilt belief that with a bit of effort, I could know. So that might explain my problem with mystery - and if anything that follows offends you, you can blame my genes.

I believe God created us for relationship. And not a master-slave, I'm the creator of the universe you are only here under sufferance you worthless ****, one false step and I'll squash you, which is what you really deserve , kind of relationship. No, I believe we are created ultimately for a husband - wife kind of open, intimate, nothing hidden, joint decision making, mutual submission, honouring kind of relationship. I'm sorry if that sounds blasphemous, but God chose to use that metaphor... I know some of you might baulk at joint decision making, mutual submission, but I'm going to hang my hat on the full context of Ephesians 5...

Anyway, my point is this. if God wants that kind of relationship, I'm pretty confident that He is able to create me with the capacity to fulfil it. I get that I can't create a universe or know all that he knows or be wherever he wants to be simultaneously. I get that He has abilities that are far above mine, that His ways are pure and holy in ways that mine just aren't. I get that there are things that I just won't understand about the nature of the universe, the complexities of situations.

But in terms of knowing God; His ways, His heart, knowing how my relationship with Him works, how to communicate, how to pray, what that does, how it works, why in principle, it sometimes doesn't.- these are things that I must be able to know if i am to have the kind of relationship with Him that would make all he has done worthwhile.

My God is big enough and creative enough to create mankind with the ability to know Him and know his ways without us having to resort to 'mystery' when instead of thinking it through we hold mutually exclusive concepts about God.

What would God have to be like in order for Him to create us with the capacity for reason, to go out of His way to communicate with us, to tell us that he desires this extraordinary relationship, but leave us short of the capability to understand things that really matter, that make such a relationship possible?

When the New Testament talks about 'mystery' it is in the context of a mystery 'now revealed'. The truth is that Jesus has come to remove ambiguity, to make clear what God is like and how He works in and through us: Is God an advocate of genocide as it appears in Joshua or does He seek a peaceful transition, protecting the vulnerable, as described in the rest of the Old Testament (eg Deut 20)? The life of Jesus shines light on what was mysterious.  Why isn't that boy healed when he is prayed for? Jesus shines light on it. Does God send evil spirits as the OT writers believed, or is that the work of the enemy?'Jesus shines light onto what was hidden.

"Ah, but you are not called to know these things, you are called to trust God" is the answer on many lips... And I understand that. My dad should just trust that the phone works, not refuse to engage with it because he doesn't. But trust is based on knowledge, I've seen that the phone works, I understand how to use it. But I don't trust somebody with valuable things, material or emotional, until they have proved themselves worthy of that trust. God doesn't expect me to. He says 'taste and see that The lord is good'. It's what he expects. Yet in the face of the issues raised here, if all I get back is "It's a mystery, trust Him" my not unreasonable response is "why?". The risk is that in this 'mysterious' world,  God can appear capricious, unreliable, disinterested, distant  yet judging. He is perceived  to have it all sewn up, smugly knowing everything whilst pulling our strings. The 'good' news becomes a God who has set everything up knowing the suffering it will bring and 'solves' it by having His own son murdered. In what universe such views can be described as 'love' really is a mystery.

I'm not saying that there is nothing about God that is unknowable. I'm not trying to bring God down to my size. I'm suggesting that He has graciously made us big enough to understand many of the things described as mystery. 

We might need to change our paradigm, the phone doesn't need a film. An almighty God doesn't have to control. An infinitely creative God doesn't have to forsee the future in order to guarantee it.  If you want to read more , click on the button below. 

 I believe God is knowable, through the person of Jesus, the perfect revelation of God - the mystery, hidden down the ages, now revealed.