ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHING
February 24, 2022
I was in a meeting yesterday with Rev. Mariah Newell, and she used a phrase that I had heard others use. In fact, I have probably used it at one time or another, yet it was as if I was hearing it for the first time. She said, “You are infinitely loved.” She was suggesting someone at Cypress Creek Christian Church might share those words with another human being. As others might add qualifiers or limitations to love, she offered the words, “You are infinitely loved.” What surprised me was the abruptness of her statement. It ended abruptly. I have a tendency to explain the uniqueness or immensity of God’s infinite love as if somehow I was qualified to clarify the boundaries of infinite. Infinite, as far as I know, is not measurable. It’s as if God is done with all the language games and the rhetorical debates. Infinite is infinite. In a world where so many are trying to fashion the limits of divine love using the standards of who they like and who they don’t like, it feels as if we must defend the character of God’s love. At the same time, there is something quite infectious and life-giving in the simple statement, “You are infinitely loved.” It is halting in an extraordinary and euphoric way. Amidst all the other voices clamoring for attention as they create preposterous theories on who God can and cannot love, what does it mean for us to say to everyone, “You are infinitely loved by the only One who has a pretty good grasp on the concept of infinite.”
Provide me just a moment, O Source of Life, to sit with the thought that “I am infinitely loved.” Thank you for being the One who finds ways of enfleshing that truth in the finite! Amen.
