By Rebekah Lukas

Nancy Drew has garnered audiences of young women for over 100 years. Generations of girls grew up reading the adventures of this teenage girl detective. I was one of them. I grew up with Nancy. Anne was there, of course, in the background. I knew she existed, but I didn’t grow up reading her books or watching her movies like some other girls did. No, I had Nancy. This was due mostly to my own sister’s obsession with her. Nevertheless, I followed where my sister led and I too was learning The Secret of Lilac Inn, discovering The Hidden Staircase, and uncovering The Secret of the Old Clock with Nancy Drew.  The clues and the twists and the “who-done-its” – there was a thrill to it all. We loved the mystery. 

That’s the mystery we learn to love, the mystery we think of first when the word is mentioned. Crime shows on TV, true-crime podcasts, thriller movies, detective novels—it’s a booming genre and a booming industry. What is it that draws us? Perhaps not so much the mystery itself. Rather, like with Nancy Drew, it’s the thrill of putting the pieces together. And maybe not even the thrill, but rather the control. Solving a mystery puts us at the helm and gives us an opportunity to showcase our ability, superiority, and mastery: collecting facts, checking alibis, finding witnesses, evaluating motives and opportunities. It takes reasoning and deduction, whittling things down until you have found the answer. Mystery. Its purpose? To be solved. Who gets the glory? The one who solves it. 

Sure, Anne of Green Gables had lots to offer and appealed to many as well, but Nancy – Nancy had her own girl-detective video games. My sister and I, we could actually solve the mystery! We could be Nancy. We had notebooks dedicated to our crime-solving quests, filled with clues, riddles, solved puzzles, passwords, codes, names. We were serious about our sleuthing. We would go on to beat every Nancy Drew game, solving every mystery, and doing our best to beat the clock while we were at it.

Enter Anne. As far as I know, Anne doesn’t have her own video games. What kind of thrill would there be to wander around Prince Edward Island, go to school, work on a farm, and have every day interactions with friends, family, and neighbors? Not much thrill at all compared to a grand theft, a haunted mansion, or a missing person. Yet if you read Anne’s stories, you quickly find that Anne herself is constantly thrilled by the world around her. Driving past a pond she sees not merely a pond, but a “Lake of Shining Waters.” Going down a road lined with blossoming trees, she marvels not at The Avenue, but at “The White Way of Delight.” Everything Anne encounters has a wonder to it, a quality beyond what she can see, a depth of meaning and marvel that, though she doesn’t understand it, she is enamored by it. She’s enraptured by the mystery of the world – exactly as it is, yet seeing it fuller and deeper than it’s mere appearance. 

Anne is not in control of what she encounters or experiences. Her parents die. She’s in an orphanage. She gets adopted. She doesn’t choose any of these things. She takes them as they come, grasping from each moment what it has to offer her. She doesn’t manipulate, solve, or fix her situation – rather, she seems to embrace the deeper mystery. Not as something to be solved, but something to be experienced and expressed.

When we talk about Nancy and Anne, we have two kinds of mystery. One is about achievement. The other is about gift. As people functioning in a North Atlantic context, the first type of mystery is the one that gets the most attention. How high achieving can we be? How much can we prove? How can we make life better for ourselves or for everyone else? What needs to be fixed or solved, and what’s my ‘hack’ to do it? Influencers are rampant, solving every little problem for everyone, whether or not that problem actually exists. TikTok accounts are devoting to life hacks, shopping hacks, cooking hacks—anything you can think of. Also on the rise are de-influencing accounts: people who have made it their mission to keep you from wasting your money on products that are counterproductive or harmful. Are you struggling or questioning or even simply wondering about something that you don’t have all the answers for? Google is right there, holding all the answers (and more) to what you might be mystified about. Mystery is no more. Everything is solved (not really). Unless…

We embrace the second kind of mystery. Anne’s kind of mystery. The mystery of a gift, something from outside ourselves. A wonder and awe at the world, at life, at everything and anything, knowing there’s more to it than we see. Anne’s mystery is what I hear in St. Paul’s letter to the Christians in Colossae. 

Colossians 1:24-19 Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church. I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness— the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. To this end I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.

God creates the mystery. He reveals the mystery. He hasn’t made a grand scavenger hunt for people to achieve. He gives the answer as gift – and that answer is Jesus. “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” That’s the mystery. To Jew and Gentile alike, Christ is given and Christ is revealed. You don’t need to be a super sleuth or trending influencer to receive the hope of glory that is to come. It’s in the everyday ordinary things for everyday ordinary people. Water. Bread. Wine. The Word spoken. The Word read. The relationship between brothers and sisters in the family of God and the consolation found within. The mystery is embraced and repeated for what it is: Christ. Christ in you. Christ resurrected. Christ returning. Christ making all things new.

The mystery is the gift of the now and not yet. We can see a pond (or any situation in our life) and know it is a pond—yet it is also The Lake of Shining Waters. We don’t need to solve the pond. We can marvel in the deeper beauty of the world, of life and its experiences and situations, knowing we have Christ in us and all is revealed in him. All is complete in him. He has achieved everything and we have fullness of life in him. Everything is fuller and deeper than its mere appearance. That is the better kind of mystery. 

“When we talk about Nancy and Anne, we have two kinds of mystery. One is about achievement. The other is about gift.“