6 Seasons of CallingSample

Called To Be a Mystic

The best we can tell, the longest living disciple was John, and he may have lived into his 90s. This would have been miraculously old for the first century. In fact, his advanced years may have contributed to the widespread rumor at the time that Jesus claimed he would not die. Still, we should all be grateful for John’s long life and the late-blooming writing contributions he made. In spite of being exiled to the island of Patmos under the tyrannical reign of Nero, John survived to write a gospel, his extraordinary Revelation, and likely three epistles.

Even a cursory survey of John’s gospel and his epistles reveals one persistent, overarching theme: love. And despite its confounding imagery, the book of Revelation offers us the most mystical and forward-looking piece of Scripture in all the Bible. It could be argued that these two themes, or vantage points, would have been underdeveloped in the New Testament without him. These two areas of fascination—mysticism and love—are endemic to Day 6.

In his final years, John seemed to grow more and more fixated and even obsessed with the love of God . . . perhaps because he had become more aware of that love finding a home in his own heart. And similarly, he seemed to find new heights of intimacy and understanding about the world to come, revelation that was the direct result of deep and luxurious prayer. In the last days of his life, he found himself fascinated by both mystery and love. All of us, as we enter Day 6, can hope for the same fascination as our calling and development takes one final turn toward a panoramic perspective, primarily lived out in a few important relationships.

The work of the final day, then, like day six of creation, is about people. On day six, God makes human beings in His image. And so, on Day 6 of our creative lives, we look for a small group of people to impart the full blessing and gift of our leadership legacy. This last Day is about investing in a few truly worthy people who can be the repository of our best learning and our highest care and support. But, like day six of creation, it is also about union, or, in our case, re-union. It's about the impending promise of God walking again with us in the cool of the day and our gaze turning, for the first time, away from this world and on to the next.

Of course, we are still creating, still mentoring, and, for that matter, still learning and serving, up until our last breath. Those identities are never lost to us. But the mystic embraces the final day of life for what it is—an impending reunion with God.

The conviction of the centrality of love is fed by the revelations of a life long-lived and an eternity waiting for us. In the end, this is also the image of God we pass on to our prodigy. We, having been recreated into the image of God, who is love, are then leaving ourselves as an impression on those who are closest to us. We leave a legacy as mystics who drink deeply from the cup of love, perhaps because we know we will soon see His face.