One Side and the Other

“On the one side, it is true that the soul must always be seeking, always gazing up through the darkness to a God who hides Himself, always remembering that the Infinite transcends the finite and that an immense agnosticism must be an element to every creed; the lines of this world, as it were, run up into gloom; the light that glimmers through carved tracery and heavy stains is enough to walk by, but little more. It is in silence that God is known, and through mysteries that He declares Himself. ‘God is spirit,’ formless, infinite, invisible, and eternal, and ‘they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.’ Here, then, is mysticism and the darkness of spiritual experience.

Then, on the other side, God became man – ‘the Word was made flesh.’ The divine, unknowable Nature struck itself into flesh and ‘tabernacled amongst us, and we beheld His glory.’ What was hidden was made known. It is not only we who thirst and knock: it is God Who, thirsting for our love, died upon the cross that He might open the kingdom of heaven to all believers, Who rent the veil of the Temple by His death-groan, and Who still stands knocking at every human heart, that He may come in and sup with man. The round dome of heaven is brought down to earth; the walls of the world are plain to the sight; its limitations are seen in the light of God; the broad sunshine of Revelation streams on all sides through clear windows upon a gorgeous pavement…”
~Robert Hugh Benson