Romans 16 contains scholarly puzzles. First, Paul knows twenty-nine people in a church he hasn't visited. (Have you a similar conundrum in your Christmas card list?) Greetings to friends, final instructions, and a blessing signal the conclusion of Paul’s epistle. Verses 17-20 are typical Pauline directives, including a warning to preserve the received teachings and a promise that Satan will be crushed. Our text today is an extended benedictory wish that foreshadows a major theme of Paul’s last letters: “the revelation of the mystery . . . made known to all the Gentiles.”

The mystery is that “the Gentiles have become fellow heirs, members of the same body, sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 3:6). Erudite Paul never recovers from amazement that God’s promises are extended to Gentiles, which is precisely what the risen Christ charges him to do: “Bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles” (Rom. 1:5). The final verses of Romans from today's reading summarize salvation history and rehearse the epistle’s great themes. But how does one proclaim a mystery, something which, by definition, is unknown and at least partially unknowable? Paul proclaims no doctrinal statements with which we must agree, but an action: God’s inclusion of the Gentiles by means of a person, Jesus Christ. As we know, people are always mysterious. When we proclaim this mystery, the best rhetorical strategy is doxology.

Christmas carols reflect this strategy. We don’t sing dogmatic statements about the Trinity or the meaning of the Atonement, though both are important. We join the “multitude of the heavenly host,” singing “Glory to God in the highest.” The proclamation of the Christian mystery begins with doxology. Glorifying God is the point of proclamation and the basis of Christian spirituality.