Beyond Comprehension
I'm working on a piece for an Easter celebration, somehow addressing the idea that the Resurrection of Jesus is beyond our comprehension, awesome and beyond us.
A question has come up, though: how do we deal with incomprehensiblity? Much of life is incomprehensible, starting with, say, the future. We comprehend that futures come--they always have. But the shape of that future, the unknown of it...isn't it incomprehensible? What about how computers work? Most of us have no idea, really, other than perhaps some sequence of 1's and zeros make programs run. Astonishing, and comprehensible only in that we see it the actual results of the incomprehensible thing. How about the fact that we can be loved? Forgiven? Hard to imagine, really.
But we have to live in the face of incomprensibility, don't we? The question "why?" assumes we do not, often cannot, understand a thing. We ask why about death all the time. We see it, it comes, it is ever present, but we do not grasp it at all. This is true of all manner of things. We act as if we understand, and how can we do otherwise. We can't run around asking why about everything. Hunger needs to eat, not to understand the miracle of nutrient transformation.
So what is faith, but the willingness to act on in the face of certain incomprehensibilities? And it seems a short leap to make to say that the specific nature of one's faith depends on the incomprehensibilities one chooses to believe anyway. To say it another way, the incomprehensiblity of any number of spiritual (by that I mean human) realities is no excuse not to go on acting in the full knowledge of their truths.
I will never comprehend the Resurrection (perhaps at my own?) but God help me live in it's truthful wake.
10:08:10 AM
