Meditation on the mystery of Christ’s suffering.

First time I heard somebody talk about meditating on divine mysteries, I didn’t understand what she was talking about. “She” was a Roman Catholic who was encouraging her fellow Catholics to do that, and I was a Protestant kid who was raised to believe Catholics were heretic. I don’t believe that anymore, but at the time, I wasn’t inclined to give my Catholic sisters and brothers the benefit of the doubt: I was pretty sure she was talking about some weird spiritual practice that’d lead people astray.

Some of the problem—other than my anti-Catholic bias—is the fact the Protestants I worshiped with, didn’t understand what meditation is. They thought all meditation was the eastern type, practiced by Hindus, Buddhists, Transcendental Meditation, and various pagan religions: You clear your mind as much as possible and think about nothing. Whereas meditation in the scriptures is all about thinking about God, and turning over in our minds the stuff he reveals to us. Usually stuff from the scriptures. And if that’s how you define meditation—and it’s supposed to be how we Christians define meditation—then my fellow Protestants did that a whole bunch; we just didn’t know to call it meditation. We let eastern pagans swipe the term right out from under us.

The other part of the problem is most Protestants didn’t know what mysteries are. To be fair, Catholics use the term way more often than Protestants do. That’s why when Protestants say “mystery,” we think it’s something we don’t know. “Contemplating mysteries” sounds to us like we’re thinking about all the things we don’t know. Contemplating divine mysteries sounds like we’re thinking about all the things about God which we don’t know—and that’s a lot, ’cause he’s an infinite God, and we got finite brains, so there’s an infinite gap between what we know and who God is.

I’ve heard more than one ignorant Protestant actually rebuke the Orthodox and Catholic for thinking about divine mysteries: “Why are they wasting their time meditating about what we don’t know about God? Shouldn’t we think about what we do know?” Yeah, this statement sounds all the more ignorant once you do know what mysteries are.

In the scriptures, mystery refers to something we previously didn’t know—but thanks to Jesus, now we know do. Biblical mysteries are mysteries solved. Mysteries revealed. Nobody who meditates on mysteries is thinking about anything they don’t know; they’re thinking—properly and appropriately!—about the stuff God revealed to us. Again, usually stuff from the scriptures.

But this wrong definition of what mystery means, still kinda permeates Protestant thinking. Look up “sacred mysteries” on the internet and you’ll find plenty of Protestants—and even some Catholics!—claiming mysteries are “profound truths which are beyond human understanding.” Yeah, they used to be beyond human understanding. Not anymore! Jesus revealed ’em. He figures we’re ready to know about them. So we can get to know them. And that is what meditating on them is all about. It’s not some weird intellectual exercise where we’re looking into the void and hoping this somehow makes us deeper people; it’s getting to know God.

Meditate on atonement and salvation.

During the Lenten season, and particularly during Holy Week, Christians are regularly gonna get encouraged to meditate on the mystery of Jesus’s suffering and death. Because the mystery, now revealed, is that Jesus didn’t just die a martyr’s death; he wasn’t meaninglessly killed by jealous and power-hungry people. His death did something. It broke the power of sin and death over our lives.

Okay but how? Well, you could listen to preachers and theologians talk about how in great detail. Or you could read your bible, read what the apostles had to say about it, then meditate on what they said. They said a bunch! Here’s a taste.

Hebrews 9.23-28 CSB

23Therefore, it was necessary for the copies of the things in the heavens to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves to be purified with better sacrifices than these. 24For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with hands (only a model of the true one) but into heaven itself, so that he might now appear in the presence of God for us. 25He did not do this to offer himself many times, as the high priest enters the sanctuary yearly with the blood of another. 26Otherwise, he would have had to suffer many times since the foundation of the world. But now he has appeared one time, at the end of the ages, for the removal of sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27And just as it is appointed for people to die once—and after this, judgment— 28so also Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.

Ephesians 5.2 CSB

…and walk in love, as Christ also loved us and gave himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God.

Galatians 1.4 CSB

…who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father.

1 Peter 3.18 CSB

For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit…

1 John 3.16 CSB

This is how we have come to know love: He laid down his life for us. We should also lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.

There’s a lot more. Sometimes they go into detail, like the writer of Hebrews did; sometimes they just drop a one-liner here and there, like Paul did. Go dig around your New Testament; you’ll find more.

You can also meditate on the stations of the cross; my pastor has been reminding us about it all last week. Then put the two ideas together. Think about the mysteries of Jesus’s suffering—the hidden things the Holy Spirit revealed to us Christians in the scriptures about what this suffering really means. Jesus used his suffering and death to atone for our sins, and save the world. It’s a good idea to think about how, in his suffering, he did that. How’d he take the great evil done to him, and use it for good?

And no, this doesn’t mean sit down and brainstorm ways this coulda happened. This means read your bible. Look it up, read it, memorize it, and mentally chew on it for a while. Think deeply about it.

You don’t have to do this during Lent and Holy Week, either. You can do it all year. You can do it for the rest of your life; it’ll take the rest of your life. But of course you first gotta get started.