Texts:

Psalm 110:1-4

The Lord says to my lord, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.”

The Lord sends out from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your foes.

Your people will offer themselves willingly on the day you lead your forces on the holy mountains. From the womb of the morning, like dew, your youth will come to you.

The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, “You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.”

Job 19:23-27

“O that my words were written down! O that they were inscribed in a book! O that with an iron pen and with lead they were engraved on a rock forever! For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!

1 Timothy 3:14-16

14 I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these instructions to you so that, ¹⁵if I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth. ¹⁶Without any doubt, the mystery of our religion is great:
He^* was revealed in flesh,
   vindicated^* in spirit,^*
     seen by angels,
proclaimed among Gentiles,
   believed in throughout the world,
     taken up in glory. 

The words of 1 Peter and Job intertwine today, pointing to a picture of the divine that lives in mystery.  For some, the problem of theodicy (why evil happens if God is truly benevolent, omnipotent, onmipresent, etc.) stands in the way of belief.  The propensity for suffering creates a chasm that prevents the ability to see God.  Others, upon experiencing turmoil in their lives, lift their fists to God, demanding a different outcome, as in Isaiah 40:27.  Others still believe we are made righteous or are sanctified through our troubles.  Yet, strangely, whatever our response to turmoil, to challenge, faith remains a mystery.

Martin Luther suggests that God works under the sign of the opposite, operating within creation behind God's divine masks.  The trouble is, though, that sometimes we take the mask for being what is and forget what is behind the mask.  During the times in which we cannot make sense of the way in which God is working, we face the temptation of thinking that God is not working and that we have been left to our own devices.  I think grounding our stories and our narratives in the broader narrative, we aren't able to make more sense of the life of faith, but we are able to proceed with confidence that - no matter how lonely - we do not walk alone.

Under the mask, under the sign of the opposite, the Creator continues beckoning creation forward.