crypto-theology

Here is a crucial question: Why did the ascension happen? Why was it "better" (John 14-16) for Jesus to leave the disciples with only his indirect presence - via Spirit, Word, and Sacrament?
And why did he picture the Kingdom of God as something which is hidden until the climactic harvest?
Here is a parallel question: Why was Saul of Tarsus struck with blindness as his fundamental experience of the risen Jesus?
And one more related question: Why were the Corinthians so emphatically wrong to act as though they could see clearly in the present (1 Cor 13)?

Perhaps one way to express the Corinthians' problem is "over-manifest spirituality" - an error at home in the pre-parousia age, in which Jesus can only genuinely be known and celebrated as the Crypto-Kurios... the Lord who is hidden from the world's esteem by the disgraceful curse of the cross. Consequently the cruciform hiddenness of the Crypto-Kurios is witnessed to by the cruciform mission of Paul, the original Crypto-Theologian.