Have you ever been speechless? Have you ever been so
overcome with emotion that words failed you? I can think of times in my life when I have been hard pressed to put words to my emotions and those times are more than memorable.
Sometimes those moments that defy description are
moments of intense tragedy, sometimes they are moments of great joy or when we are surrounded by beauty. I remember the emotions that flooded my soul as I watched the World Trade Center fall to the ground on the morning of September 11, 2001. I couldn’t put words to that sense of loss and tragedy even today no matter how hard I tried. I also remember the moments in my life when I finally achieved a goal that I had labored for... graduation from College, graduation from Seminary, receiving the call to pastor the Old Stonington Baptist Church, Lots of times when I have
been unable to put my thoughts and feelings into words and I am sure that many of you, if asked, wouldn’t have too hard a time coming up with times in your lives when you were left without words. Most often, these moments are times of intense pleasure or beauty and when it happens we are somehow transformed. Such is the way it is with the grace and the love of God, or at least the way it should be when we consider his love for us that is described in our scripture passage for this morning.
So often we are tempted to cheapen the grace of God not by intentional action, but by taking for granted the life that is ours through Christ. Does it not amaze you that God has chosen you to call you his child? I know it does me! When I look at the very simplest of facts contained in the gospel and I contrast those facts with the way that I live my life, I am amazed and left speechless. There is no way that I cold ever deserve what Christ has done for me and I know that is the simplest of facts, but it is also one of the most profound things that we can ever experience if we will allow God’s love to reach deeply into our souls and touch us where we most need to be touched.
That is what happens in those moments when words fail us. Whether good or bad, we are touched deeply and are left wanting for words to adequately describe what it is that we are feeling. Sadly, familiarity breeds contempt or if not contempt, it at the very least breeds apathy and sadly, we are far to often apathetic about the gifts that are ours once they have become familiar and comfortable... taken for granted.
Remember those birthday or Christmas gifts of childhood, or even of recent years and how the newness and the beauty overwhelmed you when you first took the paper from the package. Remember how much you appreciated the gift and perhaps even wondered how the giver of those gifts thought you were worthy of such a gift. But then, with the passage of time you will acknowledge how the passing of time allowed you to start to take the gift for granted and maybe even let it fall out of use or whatever. I remember the year I got my first NEW bicycle for Christmas. I remember going out into the street and riding it endlessly over Christmas break... I remember keeping it safely on the front porch of our house and protecting it from the weather and the elements. I remember being without words to describe how happy I had been by receiving the gift of that shiny new red 24 inch Ten-Speed... I remember riding it for a long time and enjoying the opportunity to go FAST and the pedal easily back up the hills to home as I came home from riding my bike to school. What I don’t remember is when I stopped
taking care of the bike, when I started leaving it out in the rain, when I sort of took it for granted and allowed it to fall into dis-repair. Today, I couldn’t even tell you what happened to that bike. It might even still be in the back yard of my parent’s house in Hillsboro, but I couldn’t say for sure.
My point, and I do have one, is this: the same thing happens with many of us as we relate to God. We first encounter God’s love and grace and we experience a newness and a freshness of life as a result of our encounter with him. We gladly trade in our old lives with all of the pain and brokenness for the fresh start and the love that he offers to us and then somewhere along the way we begin to take God for granted. It probably isn’t something that we do
intentionally or even consciously, but it does happen none the less. We stop being impressed with the love made known to us on the Cross of Calvary. We stop being amazed by the grace that God shows to us as undeserving children. We ignore the call that he has placed on our lives as his disciples and as a result, our faith falls into disrepair. When we try to recall that moment when it all fell away, we can’t even come up with the moment in time when it stopped being something that left us speechless. We can’t even remember what it was like to be without words to describe the love of God.
We in the church are great at coming up with all of the “right answers” to those who ask us about our faith. We have little phrases to share with others who don’t know the love of God in a personal way, but it really doesn’t touch us at the core of our soul any longer.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be like that! Particularly as we move towards Easter... as we look at Good Friday, I don’t want to see it through dim eyes anymore. I want to look at the sacrifice that Christ made for us in the ultimate demonstration of love on Calvary, and I want to be so moved in my soul that I am left without words to describe it. When I try to tell others about the love of God, I want to struggle to put into words the emotion that floods my soul.
Our society seems to put a pretty high value on the presence of lots of words. But, I want to assure you that sometimes the lack of words is of immeasurable value.
Just recently, I have thought about the Nike Ads on TV. OK, here is a quiz (not a difficult one), but I want you to actually answer out loud. What is the
advertising slogan of Nike? That’s right, for quite some time now, we have been told by the Nike corporation to “Just Do It!”. I don’t know when exactly that slogan came into being, but Nike, the masters of understatement, have been able to capture what they believe to be the essence of their product in three simply words “Just Do It”... so we do! I don’t mean to make enemies here, but are Nike’s shoes any better than anyone else’s shoes? Probably not. But they do sell their shoes not because of using lots of words, In fact, these ads really aren’t selling shoes, they are really selling a state of mind, a "belief system" if you will. Whatever it is, it doesn’t take words to sell their product anymore either. “Just Do It”... that’s all it takes!
That’s the way it is with the Christian faith as well. It doesn’t take words... In fact, there aren’t words enough to describe the love of God for us. It is something that is indescribable... Something that should leave us wanting for words to describe it to the world. It is a love that should leave us speechless.
May God help us to overcome the familiarity that has allowed us to grow apathetic or careless with his love and may God challenge us each and every one to understand the indescribable gift that is ours through the Cross... When I stop and think about all of this, I can’t come up with words!
