Hello and Good Morning to Everybody,

This is the second week in Advent and my explorations into it continue. Last week it was “waiting” so we continue to wait. This week it is “Mystery”.

Mystery is more than not knowing something. There are overtones to mystery. There is a sense of curiosity and then awe about what we don’t know. We want to know a mystery but approach it with hesitation, fear and wonder. The mystery of God’s coming to earth as a man is wonderful, but also scary.

Why did He come? I put myself in His place as well as I can. Would I go down to live in a colony of ants – become an ant and live like they do? I don’t really like ants. I guess they do have a few redeeming traits. They are industrious, saving, and can lift really heavy burdens. They do have an organized system of livelihood and a social set up that seems to be to their advantage in life; but they don’t have much freedom to do anything but what each one’s place allows. I don’t think they care much about each other. They fight each other. I think they even eat each other. I wouldn’t go down to be an ant for anything. Even if I loved them, which I don’t, I wouldn’t want to be one. God came down to be like us in physical body. Our Holy God became a man for us. He must have loved us more than life. That is the only reason God would do that. He loved us. He loved us enough to be one of us.

Therein lies the mystery. Why does He love us? We are disobedient, ungrateful, mean to each other, and just plain ugly for the most part. We are unlovable creatures like ants, but He loves us anyway. He loves us more than we can imagine. He came to live with us, to put up with all our ugliness, and to save us from dying. He loved us enough to die for us. He loved us that much and He still does. That is the mystery.

Why does He love us? I can’t imagine, but I know He does because He says so in His Word and because He sits with me here every morning and gives me the comfort of His Word and all the promises in it.

Further mystery is the way He came. He came as a helpless child, totally dependent on ordinary people to care for Him and see Him to adulthood. He trusted His Father to see to all that. Knowing how greedy, selfish and obstinate people we are; He still came to be our mentor and Savior. That kind of love is a mystery to all of us.

Why He came– that is not a mystery. He came because He loves us.

Why He loves us, I don’t pretend to know. It will remain a mystery always. I am so grateful that He does.

Irma Jane Fritz-Zager