And Can It Be? (ii)

Verse 2
'Tis mystery all: th'Immortal dies:
Who can explore His strange design?
In vain the firstborn seraph tries
To sound the depths of love divine.
'Tis mercy all! Let earth adore,
Let angel minds inquire no more.

I performed a search over at the Wesley Center Online to see if much had been written on this verse in particular. Nothing much showed up, but I found a series of sermons compiled into a book that were preached by P.F. Bresee. He quotes this verse in one of the sermons and writes some beautiful words that speak of this mystery that Charles Wesley was speaking to in this verse...that darkness and hope meet at the cross:

That is a marvelous utterance of the Spirit through the prophet Hosea -- "I will give her the valley of Achor for a door of hope." Achor was the dark place -- the place of disaster, defeat, wreck; and that place of darkness is made a door of hope. Where the wreck and ruin came, there the Cross is raised. Sin has caused the awful blight and curse, but right in the very place where the curse falls, there the Blood flows. The Lamb of God dies to take away the sin of the world.

The Son of God has made the darkest place of human history the most luminous place in this universe. Every thing is dim beside it. Ten thousand suns gathered into one, would be blackness itself compared to the unspeakable glory of the cross of Christ. The Cross is the great suffering, infinite, crowning glory of God. It is the mighty, struggling, dying effort to do what omnipotence can not do; to accomplish the impossible; to cause infinite justice and infinite mercy to kiss each other over the brow of a doomed man, and folding their arms about him, lift him to a new possibility. To the amazement of a moral universe it is done. Infinite love, infinite suffering bring it to pass.

'Tis mystery all! Moving into the lyrics themselves, in the last post, I suggested that Charles wasn't making an explicit theological statement about divinity dying. You might think that it would be best for me to back off from my assessment of Charles given his statement here, 'th'Immortal dies', but I still don't think he's making a doctrinal claim except the orthodox one that Christ is God (the Immortal one) from eternity (see Revelation 1.17-18). We saw similar claims from Charles in the series on the Nativity hymns we examined in December last year, which drew upon the rich paradox of God becoming Incarnate. The mystery and miracle of the Incarnation began in the Virgin womb and reaches a new height in the cross. But the story, as we know, was not over at Calvary. It couldn't be, but it had to go there.

Who can explore this strange design? For indeed, it is a mystery. As is true in many areas of theology (and life), when it comes to the death of Jesus, we must begin and end in the realization that we cannot exhaust its meaning. We cannot fully explore it. If we begin there, in worship and awe and humility, then we have the freedom to explain what is clear and admit what we ultimately do not and cannot know. The atoning death of Jesus is not a puzzle that needs to be pieced together. It is a mystery that we cannot ultimately explore in a way that we can explore the earth.

There's a funny clip in The Truman Show where Truman recounts his days in elementary school where he told his teacher that he wanted "to be an explorer, like the great Magellan!" His teacher (who had to take part in the ploy to keep Truman in the bubble created for his life) pulled down a map of the world and said: "Oh, you're too late! There's nothing left to explore." You and I are not made to wrap our heads around the atonement. It is bigger than our heads. If it weren't, then it wouldn't be much, would it? That's why there's something freeing about beginning with mystery and keeping that at the heart of Jesus' death, as Charles does here. In Psalm 31, John Wesley's notes convey the atonement as mystery when he says: ...the secret of God's tabernacle, as it is called, Psalm 27.5, the place of God's special presence, where none might enter save the high-priest. With thy secret favour and providence, which saves them by hidden and unknown methods.

Even angel minds cannot grasp the depths of love divine. Who are humans that You are mindful of us...that You care for us...that You'd become one of and die for us? It takes a good dose of humility and trust to adore something you cannot grasp, but that is what is asked of us when it comes to the death of Christ. But humility, trust, and adoration is truly freeing as we realize that the depths of the reality of God's love is beyond comprehension, yet we can truly experience it! 'Tis mercy all! Let earth adore...