“A paradox? A paradox, A most ingenious paradox! We've quips and quibbles heard in flocks, But none to beat this paradox! A paradox, a paradox, A most ingenious paradox. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!”

This memorable refrain from the classic Gilbert and Sullivan play Pirates of Penzence has been rattling around in my head ever since Reverend Hoppe’s sermon on Sunday. In the play, the young hero, Frederic, has just been released from 21 years of service to some amusingly patriotic and noble pirates (he was apprenticed to the pirates as his hard-of-hearing nursemaid misheard Frederic’s father’s instructions to apprentice him to a ship’s pilot). However, Frederic has just been informed that as his birthday was on the 29th of February, and the terms of his apprenticeship were for 21 birthdays, Frederic, being the ever-noble and upright apprentice pirate, must face returning to a life of piracy until he is in his eighties.

The paradox, as Frederic declares:

“Though counting in the usual way,

Years twenty-one I’ve been alive.

Yet, reckoning by my natal day,

Yet, reckoning by my natal day, 

I am a little boy of five!”

Hilarity naturally ensues throughout the remainder of the play! However, Frederic makes a comment about this paradox that I find especially substantive in relation to Sunday’ssermon -

“How quaint the ways of Paradox!

At common sense she gaily mocks!”

And this is precisely the point that Rev. Hoppe detailed for us. Our common sense, our most natural desire, as we face the icy challenges that life throws at us is to “white-knuckle” it; to strive to control and over-power difficulty by making our name great, or by demonstrating our own righteousness, or by building up our own little kingdom. And yet, the paradox is that it is precisely by relinquishing control to God, by forgoing our domineering inclination, that is precisely the way in which God works.  

I find myself in this paradox quite frequently. Perhaps I have had a few rough days, allowing sin to run rampant in my decisions and actions. Seeing the consequence and my frailty, perhaps I return to God in humble repentance. And as I turn once again, renewed by the grace that our God so freely pours out, I paradoxically strive to build a name for God (mostly, but maybe a bit for myself) so that God will be more proud of my actions! And once again, as I strive to build that name, and as I once again fail, I must turn again to God in repentance. A paradox!

I used to think that paradoxes were problems that arose because there was a flaw in the logic, or because the larger picture had not yet been perceived, or that there was more evidence that needed to be gathered. I thought that paradoxes were antithetical to a logical universe. However, I have begun to see that I am quite wrong. Take for instance, the duality paradox, or the wave-particle duality: scientific observation has demonstrated that quantum entities (light, for instance) can be described operating simultaneously in the seemingly incompatible forms of both a particle as well as a wave. In order to accommodate for this paradox, the classic scientific models of simply a particle and simply a wave had to be discarded (or perhaps augmented) in this case, and the new model of wave-particle duality had to be assimilated to describe the behavior of quantum entities. The paradox, rather than being resolved by further study, was simply accepted as the normal functioning of the universe. Now, I might note that this may be a bad example as further studies in physics may develop a model of the universe wherein the duality is not paradoxical, but for the time-being, permit my example to stand.

Moreover, not only have I begun to realize that paradox exists in the natural order around us, paradox exists also in our understanding of God; none more so than in the character and person of Christ! How one man can simultaneously exist as both fully man and fully God is nothing less than “a most ingenious paradox!” And yet, it goes so much further! Scottish theologian James Stewart wonderfully explicates the paradox we find in Christ:

“He was the Meekest and lowliest of all the sons of men, yet he spoke of coming on the clouds of heaven with the glory of God. He was so austere that evil spirits and demons cried out in terror at his coming, yet he was so genial and winsome and approachable that the children loved to play with him, and the little ones nestled in his arms. His presence at the innocent gaiety of a village wedding was like the presence of sunshine. 

No one was half so compassionate to sinners, yet no one ever spoke such red-hot, scorching words about sin. A bruised reed he would not break. His whole life was love, yet on one occasion he demanded of the Pharisees how they ever expected to escape the damnation of hell. He was a dreamer of dreams and a seer of visions, yet for sheer stark realism he has all of our self-styled realists soundly beaten. He was a servant of all, washing the disciples’ feet, yet masterfully he strode into the temple, and the hucksters and the moneychangers fell over one another from the mad rush and the fire they saw blazing in his eyes.

He saved others, yet at the last, himself he did not save. There is nothing in history like the union of contrasts that confronts us in the gospels. The mystery of Jesus is the mystery of divine personality.”

And that is where we must turn. As we face the paradox of striving for control and failing, as we feel the weight of the paradox and the seemingly endless cycle of our ineptitude and sin, we must turn to the Great Paradox, Christ, and see in him the fulfillment of all of God’s work of redemption, both having been done, and still yet to be completed.

~ Josh Spare