Why We Need Mystics

To what can I compare this generation?  They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others: "We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn."  For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, "He has a demon." The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, "Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.  But wisdom is proved right by her actions (Matt.11:16-19).

 

Yesterday I wrote about dwelling in the "Secret Place" of the Most High, and a friend asked, "Who is this 'world' of which you write?  What is fascinating to me is that I don't read comments on the previous day's blog until I am ready to write today's -- after a long period of morning prayer.  And so, this morning I came to my computer with the words stored up in my heart -- only to find two things: (1) the quotation above, posted today on FB by one of my friends, and (2) the question on yesterday's blog -- Who is this 'world' of which you write?  I never know what the Holy Spirit is going to do, and He never fails to astonish me.

 

The New Testament uses the term "world" in a" number of different ways.  A fascinating study would be to just go through all the Gospels noting the uses of the term "world" -- clearly, it has different meanings in different contexts.  In John 14, at the Last Supper, Jesus promises that He will not leave His friends as orphans, but that He would send them the Spirit of truth:  the world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him.  But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you....before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me (vv.15,19).

 

Who is this "world" of which Jesus spoke -- the one that does not see the Spirit at work, the one that cannot "receive" Him?  It is the 'generation' that sees only the surface of things, the people who condemned John the Baptist for being a 'demon' and Jesus for being a 'glutton.'  In other words, those who cannot see into the heart.  Jesus warned His disciples not to throw their pearls to 'swine,' who would 'trample them underfoot and then turn and tear you to pieces' (Matt. 7:6).

 

Our hearts and minds are the battleground between the Spirit and the 'world.'  The 'world,' the one that fails to recognize the Spirit, calls to us to join them on the path to destruction: we played the flute for you and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.  Those who are listening to the Spirit of God hear a different song, and because they do, they will not join in the 'song of the world.'  And the world cannot understand why. 

 

Our 'inner man' is pure; the 'world and the devil' seek access to that kingdom to destroy it.  The reason I included the circle image above is that it represents the layers of our soul, from the external -- the physical -- the only one the 'world' can see-- to the most secret, the inner man, our hearts and souls.  The battleground is the heart and mind of man, the one that is wounded and scarred and therefore closed to both God and man in self-defense.  When we are hurt as children, as teens, or even as adults, we add a layer of protective wall against further injury -- "I won't be hurt again!"  Unfortunately, that closes us off to the Spirit as well as to the world outside. That is exactly why Jesus told Nicodemus that unless we are 'born again of water and Spirit,' we cannot even see the kingdom of God. The 'world' could not 'see' Jesus; they crucified him as a charleton and a blasphemer because He 'made himself equal to God.'

 

To see Truth, we need mystics -- those who can see beyond the physical -- those who can penetrate the spiritual world inside us and the Spirit of God that the "world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him."  When my students are reading about their 'saints,' those they are choosing as their 'patrons,' I try to get them to go beyond the facts of that person's life -- when he lived, what he did, when he died.  These 'facts' are all that the 'world' can know, and it is all they will ever know.  But beyond those 'facts,' what else can we know about that saint?  Ah, only mystics, poets, and the Spirit of God can tell us that -- those who are willing to receive the Spirit that the "world" does not know.