To the Unknown God

March 3, 2009

Today's Reading: Numbers 7-8 and Acts 17

When Paul arrived for a meeting at Aeropagus, he saw that there was a lot of idols around him. Oddly enough, Paul was not at all offended or upset by this in any way. He even said the opposite of what most Christians would say when he stated: “I see that in every way you are very religious”.

He even brought up the fact that there was an idol site labeled: To An Unknown God. In all honesty, I’m not certain what would prompt someone to erect a monument to that which you don’t know yet, but perhaps it is thinking ahead. After all, I’m sure there were other religions that had yet to be found by that point in time. In comparison, the Greek Gods were quite young in relation to the ones of the Egyptians. Perhaps the one who had made this memorial to all things enigmatic might have wanted to get a jump on things when it came to the birth of new faiths.

That, or perhaps it is a statement about human nature. You see, we humans really do live by what we can see, feel, taste, hear, or touch. Most people have some innate sense that there is some higher power controlling that which we cannot, but they do not know exactly what it is.

Have you ever seen the ending of Men In Black? The whole film was about chasing a galaxy that was the size of a marble, and, as it turns out, our galaxy is about the size of a marble to a giant (I can’t even think of a word to describe how giant this is) alien. Apparently, Earth is just one speck of a planet in a tiny marble.

I remember when I first saw that final image from that film, I, like any other Christian, just said “no way”. After all, if this were reality, then there probably isn’t a God, unless He is even more gigantic (again, this isn’t close to the right word used to describe this) than this alien.

The truth is, we honestly don’t know what really is out there in space, and it is too infinite in its scale to really ever know it. God is very much the same way, there are things about Him that will always be unknown, at least in this lifetime.

I guess it make sense to embrace the unknown, but not just erecting a monument to it. The whole point of a mystery is to solve it, no matter how much time it takes. So, really, if you don’t know who your God is, get on it!