Wisdom: Secret and Hidden

A Reflection on the Second Reading for Sunday, February 12th, 2023:
The Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time

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1 Corinthians
2.6-10

Brothers and sisters: Among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish. But we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

As it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him.” These things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.

Wisdom is a loaded word. It can elicit images of wizened hands – worn out and wrinkled by time and experience – and wise old men and women, passing on their stories. Young people will get wise to the world after they have a little experience. Often, the wisdom that we’re talking about is a kind of street smarts and practical knowledge acquired through suffering or over a long period of time. Wisdom is seen as a sort of accumulation of lessons learned that enables a person either to make better choices or to give sound advice. 

A major part of parenting is offering wise words to our children. Put on your proper winter clothes or you’ll catch cold. Don’t give your heart away to the first person who asks. Don’t walk alone after dark. Use a thermometer to make sure your meat is cooked through. Practical wisdom all around, and all important. We want to pass on what our parents taught us and what we learned through experience. 

But what Paul is talking about here isn’t practical or earthly wisdom; it is the wisdom of God Himself. God’s wisdom wasn’t won through the school of hard knocks or simply by being ancient of days. God didn’t gain wisdom through experience. God is Wisdom. Any scrap of true wisdom we have comes from the source of all Wisdom.

God’s Wisdom is complete from before time began, and it often flies in the face of our practical wisdom. God’s Wisdom chooses forgiveness for those who totally reject Him. God’s Wisdom chooses the Cross. God’s Wisdom chooses us. God’s Wisdom sees fit to deny the nature He created to send us miracles. If I were sitting at the head of the mess of humanity, I doubt my first thought would be to send my son to die for them. But God’s Wisdom isn’t separate from His Love. Both things co-exist, just as His Justice and His Mercy co-exist. God is no fool, but He sees everything from a perspective I cannot see or imagine.

Paul also gives us a hint for how to access that Wisdom and that perspective for ourselves when faced with our own corner of broken humanity. We can access the Wisdom of God through the intervention of the Spirit; through the Spirit’s movement we can glimpse God’s perspective and participate in that Love and Wisdom. God is inviting us in to taste His Goodness and to be His Goodness in the lives of others. He is inviting us to reject earthly wisdom and seek first and foremost His wisdom. 



Stephanie Potter

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