Words are funny things. They hold so much weight, yet sometimes seem so flimsy, empty, devoid of meaning or not wide enough to contain the moment. A few syllables, a pair of diphthongs, or even a single sigh can express the entire gravity of a moment, and yet an entire novel cannot begin to cover the expanse of the millisecond. It's been said that the works of Christ are so numerous that the world could not contain the scrolls to tell of such wonders (John 21:25). Yet, for all those words, such a simple phrase like "get up and walk" or "come" or even the uttering of a name carry just as much clout and meaning.
We use words, abuse words, make words and break words down. We write words, type words, highlight words and often times find ourselves at a loss for words. Words are inclusive and exclusive, elusive and intrusive. Gadamer knew words, he saw that words created our world, embodied it into our own structure. In saying the we want a certain bike, car, book, or sandwich we are simultaneously, by the exclusiveness of language, denying all other possibilities. When we say "THAT bike" we mean "the red bike with orange trim and 14 gears with rusted tires and a black horn", and in that very phrase we deny any wanting of a purple bike, a tricycle, or anything else besides THAT bike. Yet, whenever language is exclusive, it is also inclusive insofar that whoever speaks a language is only truly speaking a language if those words and phrases are heard and understood by someone. Language is communal. In fact, the way we see the world is shaped by how we say it. Without language, humanity would have no medium for interpretation, no mode of explanation, and method of proclamation.
Yet how often language fails us. How often we are empty of words.
God empties us of words. How are we to describe one some much wiser than us, more benevolent than us, and beyond all grasps of time and space? How are we to speak of one whose openness to love is simultaneously a mystery of the most epic of proportions? How are we to use words to describe the utter dismay of our sorrows, the brokenness of our spirits, and our frequent inability to trust when words of encouragement and humanity are just not enough.
We so often put it into words. We put Christianity into words. We define Christ-following by words. But in the end, such tools are insufficient to state what these things mean. A trinitarian God whose love for human, in mirroring God's love for God's self, extends beyond space and time to the very moment where God walks among us, speaks to us, and dies for us. Tertullian, an early church theologian, invented hundreds of terms to more specifically describe such things, and in the end humanity ended where it started; no closer to the truth. Our words cannot contain the breadth and the width of God, our hearts cannot hold the glory of God's glory, and our minds cannot comprehend the hope of God's kingdom.
It's so easy to get discouraged when all we have is words; simple words. It's when words fail that God begins. It's when our trust in humanities attempts to describe and contemplate our Savior fails that God kicks in. It is then that the bleakness of the moment gives way to prayer, not without doubts, but prayer and hope in the future nonetheless.
God's kingdom is coming. A kingdom where words cannot describe, where phrases cannot contain the glory of God.
When hope is meager, faith is hard to come by, and the future seems unstable and quaggy, there is always hope beyond words.
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