Even though I do it for a living, I've always thought . . .

Even though I do it for a living, I’ve always thought that talking about God is one of the most challenging things we are called to do.  In the first place, we are limited by our perspective.  Our trying to describe God is like a fish trying to describe water.  How can we adequately, or even meaningfully, describe the One who constantly surrounds us, and supports us, and makes our very existence possible?

In the second place, we are limited by our understanding.  How can we speak intelligently about the One who will always remain mysterious, transcendent, and beyond our comprehension?  We cannot fully understand God any more than a clay jar can discern the personality of the potter who fashioned it.

But if you ask me, perhaps the biggest hurdle, when it comes to talking about God, is that all we really have are words—and words will forever fall short of truly capturing the majesty of the Almighty.  Still, words can help to point us in the right direction.  For example, if there is one thing that we can say about God with absolute certainty, it is that the Creator wants to have a relationship with us.

We hear this word in the story of Adam and Eve when the Lord comes looking for them.  We hear it in the covenant with Abraham when God promises descendants as numerous as the stars.  We hear it when the children of Israel are mercifully led out of Egypt.  We hear in the Psalms and from the prophets.  And obviously, we hear it most clearly in the person of Jesus Christ.

The problem is that, while God has continued to speak of this desire for a relationship with us, we haven’t always been in the mood to listen.  Jesus ended many of his parables with the phrase, “Let anyone with ears to hear listen!”  But we sometimes have trouble with that, don’t we?  When God speaks, a lot of us become selective listeners.  We hear what we want to and tune out the rest.

Which may be why toward the end of his life, Jesus spoke very few words.  He was practically silent when he stood before Caiaphas.  His answers to Pontius Pilate were brief and to the point.  And on the cross, he spoke only seven times.

Some have suggested that he was trying to conserve his breath, since crucifixion is technically death by suffocation.  But I have always thought that, after centuries of speaking words to us, God decided to demonstrate how much we are loved through action.  After all, Christ’s willingness to die for us made a statement louder and more persuasive than anything he could have possibly said!