Can you define love? Name all the reasons you love that one particular person in your life above all others. Or try to describe the serenity of the setting sun, the full moon in the night sky, or the miracle of a birth. Try to describe the deepest joys or tragedies of your life. It is difficult to fully explain or understand love or even the most moving and touching moments of our lives. At most, our descriptions and explanations may be accurate and can point to them, but the most profound and meaningful things and events of our lives are beyond words and even understanding. We cannot explain them; we can only live them.
Try as we may, we do not meet God in our definitions, doctrines, or reasoning. Yes, they are essential and authentic guides along the way, but they are not the ultimate truth for which we search and desire. They will not make visible for us that which is invisible. So, where do we really encounter God?
Jesus tells us today that there is much more he wants to say to us but that we cannot bear it right now. The mystery of God is too big, too wonderful, and too wild to be understood, explained, or contained. It is simply more than we can bear. The early church fathers tried to describe the unbearable truth of the Trinity as the Divine Dance of Love, and held in the center of their dance is the universe and you and me. In other words, we were created to participate in and share in the life of the Divine Dance of Love. It is part of our very DNA.
The scripture readings today remind us of the wonder of the first Incarnation and the creation of the universe, and we might well ask, “Who am I, Lord, in the vastness of all creation, that you are even aware of me, that you would seek me out?” It is that moment of sheer amazement, awe, and fear when we realize we are standing next to God, and it all becomes way too much, more than we could dare to imagine, unbearable for us to grasp.
The questions are always personal, but what is too much for us to grasp? What is beyond our comprehension? What brings us to the boundaries of what we believe and have faith in? What truth might be waiting at the edge of our wildest imagination? What is unbearable?
Jesus is not holding anything back from us. He invites us to look deeper within, dig deep, and discover what is unbearable. That’s where the Spirit guides us into a truth about ourselves we never dreamed possible or expected to hear. That’s where the Spirit reveals and makes Jesus and the Father’s love for us known.
If we want to enter into the life of the Trinity, we should look for what we cannot withstand. That profound, unimaginable truth that we hope and yearn for. There is something deep inside us that knows it. It cannot be controlled, tamed, or avoided. It’s about who we are, our existence, our very being. It’s about the deep intimacy and personal presence of the Divine Dance of Love. It is the same love and oneness right in front of us in the faces of those we love and who love us. It is experiencing our wholeness, our “enoughness,” not measured by what we do but simply because we are. It’s about being swept up into the life and love of the Trinity that can only be described as “I am.”
When we have found in ourselves what is just too much, too big, too beautiful, and too wild to bear, we will have found the place where our life becomes one with God’s life—the life of the Trinity. If we open ourselves to that divine life, we will see that God is never more real, more present than in that which we cannot bear.
(Thanks to Michael Marsh for the inspiration)
Visitor Reflections