Behold: the Mystery of Faith

"The parts of the Christian story that had drawn me into the Church were not the believing parts but the beholding parts:

"Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy..."
"Behold the Lamb of God..."
"Behold, I stand at the door and knock..."

Whether the narratives starred hayseed shepherds confronted by hosts of glittering angels or desert pilgrims watching something like a dove descend upon a man in a river as a voice from heaven called him "Beloved," Christian faith seemed to depend on beholding things that were clearly beyond belief, including Jesus's own teaching that acts of mercy toward perfect strangers were acts of mercy toward him.  While I understood both why and how the early church had decided to wrap those mysteries in protective layers of orthodox belief, the beliefs never seized my heart the way the mysteries did."

-- Barbara Brown Taylor, Leaving Church