A couple of weeks ago, I was at some friends’ house, and their youngest daughter was in the middle of reading a collection of Agatha Christie novels. As soon as I saw the book, I exclaimed how much I LOVE Agatha Christie. Until upon reflection, I realized I had never actually READ any Agatha Christie. Apparently I’ve always just loved the idea of her.
So after we all marvelled that someone who reads as much as I do has never picked up one of Dame Christie’s books, I soon found myself at the library checking out Death on the Nile. The book began a little slow, as the author developed brief back story for about 20 characters. But as soon as superstar Detective Hercule Poirot showed up on the scene, the bodies started dropping and the who-dun-it plot was in full swing.
So as not to be a spoiler for other Agatha Christie newbies, I won’t go into the plot details or the complicated twist ending. Suffice it to say, I am now an official Agatha Christie fan. I spent the next few days after finishing the book trying to solve all kinds of mysteries in my life. I analyzed my friends’ and coworkers’ personalities. I looked for inconsistent behavior patterns, and objects that seemed out of place.
I think I liked Death on the Nile so much because in the end, every question was answered. Every unexplainable event early in the novel was all tidily squared away by the last page. There was plenty of mercy for the lesser crimes that were uncovered in the process of catching the murderer. Most of those crimes were just the result of a character flaw or a moment of weakness. But for the real criminals, there was nothing but justice. Case closed.
I think this is what I often imagine the mysteries of God to be like. A series of complicated, intertwined events that could easily be explained if God were a little more like Hercule Poirot. In other words, I’ve always thought that if God would just explain what is happening and why, I’d understand it.
The more I get to know the God of the universe, however, the more I am convinced that even if he wrote out the history of the world in the form of a good Agatha Christie novel, there would still be a lot of unanswered questions, and the mercy and justice wouldn’t feel like they were distributed quite so well. At least on this side of heaven. God’s ways are just not my ways.
As much as I want my life to be a series of “Ah ha!” moments, and as eager as I am to see the bad guy get his (or her) just desserts, I am realizing that the mysteries of God are not puzzles to be solved, but revelations to be discovered. They lead me less to understanding and more to trust.
God doesn’t answer all our questions in ways we can comprehend, but he gives us one answer, Jesus, and asks us to figure out which questions we should really be asking. And when we finally are with him in heaven and have the rest of forever on our hands, we’ll finally get around to turning the pages of the greatest mystery ever written. Only in this story, we already know the surprise ending.
Michelle — So glad to have you stop in again. I appreciate your thoughts on God not telling us everything. I am unable to find the exact quote or source in which someone once said that even if God did tell us the reason why, we fool ourselves to think we could understand what he means.
Nancy — Thanks for popping in!
MEH — My heart aches for you in this time of suffering. I love your perspective that no matter how many hard questiosn the Lord leaves unanswered, it always brings us back to Jesus and eternity and trust.
This is the first time to visit your blog and your discussion on Agatha Christie and theology caught my eye! I love Agatha Christie, partly because it is tame enough I don’t get nightmares and partly because of how she develops her characters. I also love the Lord and appreciate your thoughts on the mystery of justice in this world. My sweet mom-in-law is dying of cancer, probably will be wiht the Lord this week, and my kids ask the “why” that we all are thinking. We always come back to Jesus and eternity and trust.
good post, charity!
Charity, Hope you’re doing okay.
Here, here to God being a mystery. I think that’s a basic premise Christians need to accept and be okay with. God isn’t going to tell us everything – only what we need to know, and in the time that we need to know it.
I haven’t visited here for a while and it’s good to come back.
Thank you, Charity. I’m always warmed by the friendly reactions I get when discussing things in this corner of the blogosphere.
Mark and Ted — I appreciate that you guys dropped in to check on me. I’m doing great. I have a lot going on here, and I’m just trying to figure out how to make the things I do count. Right now, that means NOT doing some things, and blogging has slipped down the list for right now. Not permanently, though.
Mark — Yes, I have read a little of Dorothy Sayers. Definitely would like to spend some more time with her mysteries. I love her nonfiction too, though.
Lynet — I was fascinated by your response. And believe it or not, it often boggles my own mind. Though undoubtedly in different ways. I guess this idea of mystery is one way to deal with the seeming “injustices.” I can’t seem to make sense of everything from any system of thinking I start with. Beginning with Jesus on the cross seems to eliminate the most mystery.
Thanks for dialoguing with me — even though I am hit and miss these days. I always learn so much from you.
Charity, I swoop in and out of the blogosphere too. I sure hope you’re doing ok.
Since you like mysteries, you probably already know Dorothy Sayers. If not, check her out. Great mystery writer… and theologian! Shocking, but true.
Hi Charity. Wondering how you are. As I think of you I try to always remember to lift you up in prayer. I hope you’re doing alright.
I guess the first reason why it’s weird is because, when atheists bring up issues like this, we often seem to assume that you believers just haven’t noticed — that you’re saying God is just and all the rest of it without really considering whether the evidence points in that direction.
That you might have considered the evidence, decided God’s version of justice probably doesn’t correspond to the definition you would come up with if asked, and then decided that God is right anyway — well, the mind boggles. My mind is boggling even as I speak.
Ted — I like your connection of knowing with faith. I think faith allows us to accept mysteries in confidence. “What” we don’t know is made up for by “Who” we know.
Craver — The crickets nearly came back this week. It’s been a little quiet over here again.
Stacey, Lynet, and Al — So I’ll definitely have to read “And Then There Were None.” Sounds like an absolute hit!
Lynet — I’d love to hear more about what you meant when you said it was weird to hear from my side of the theistic fence about the mystery of God. Was my perspective different than you would expect from a theist?
Al — Wish I could have swooped in and taken a few of those Agatha Christie novels off your hands! Then again, my book shelves probably couldn’t hold them all either. Thanks for the recommendations.
LL — More mysterious absences on my part — sorry. But I agree with what you have said about the surprise ending. Heaven is going to be much different than any of us can imagine, I’m sure.
Thanks, everyone, for going with me into this metaphor of mystery, and for tolerating my coming and going. My emotional energies are being pulled in more directions these days, and I am struggling to find the chutzpah (thanks for the word, LL) to live and write most days.
At one point I owned about 75 Agatha Christie novels – found them at a church garage sale. They took up too much space and I didn’t end up reading many of them, so I eventually traded them in to a used book store. But my faves are:
And Then There Were None (an absolute masterpiece – the gold standard)
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Murder on the Orient Express
And to a lesser extent, The ABC Murders, Death on the Nile, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Curtain, A Murder Is Announced, Ordeal by Innocence, Crooked House, etc. Okay, I’ll stop now.
‘And Then There Were None’ scared the life out of me. I thought I was going as mad as some of the characters were feeling! I’d recommend it too — but on a day when you could use a little excitement, not a day when you just want to sit back and relax with a light mystery. I got interested in Agatha Christie after I ran out of Sherlock Holmes stories. Peculiarly enough, I think ‘Death on the Nile’ was the first one I read, too! (Also my first encounter with the name ‘Linnet’ — which is my second-favourite spelling of my internet name).
God’s ways, as far as I can tell, are not my ways either. But then, I don’t know that God exists in the first place. It feels a little weird seeing your perspective on that issue from the theistic side of the fence!
Welcome to the world of Agatha Christie…I LOVE her too! You have to read “And Then There Were None” – It’s my favorite.
Also, great verse – I’ve never thought of my desire to understand God’s ways in the light of mystery novels. I too long for the moment in the sitting room where all the plot details are explained.
What happened to my crickets?
Gee, I’m sorry for jumping the gun, unveiling my mystery before you had the chance to do your sleuthing.
Glad to see you back in action, Friend!
Charity, Great to hear from you and have a new posting from you. This stuff looks alright. I’ll read it vicariously through you. Ha.
Anyhow, I believe we won’t ever understand everything as God does, of course. But that we’ll be completely happy, at rest and at peace with everything, especially in the life to come, but beginning now.
Just the same God’s word tells us that he makes known his deeds to his people, yet wants to make known his ways to those open, such as Moses was. To learn his ways is very much related to the way of faith for us now.
Well, maybe you’ll talk me into reading a book like that. But good to hear from you on it.
Let’s see, that should have been “exactly as expected”. Surely, I should be on my way to that Sabbath now. The day is nearly done. My week hiatus is full of promise… and hopefully better sentence construction!
I enjoyed hearing from you, after your mysterious absence. đ And I wonder if the surprise ending we know may hold even more surprises that we hadn’t expected. Kind of like the way Messiah’s coming both was and wasn’t exactly what as expected.