Dear Reader,

My five-year-old son was in the backseat of the car, and my thirteen-year-old daughter was in the front seat, when she and I began discussing whether or not the universe is of infinite size. The opinions of astrophysicists vary. (My thirteen-year-old daughter and I are not astrophysicists, but it was a long drive and there was nothing on the radio.)

Two hundred years ago, Heinrich Olbers stated that if the universe were infinitely old, infinitely large, and holding infinitely many stars, then it would be filled with infinite light and everything would be infinitely bright. (It’s not.) More recent theorists distinguish between the observable universe, which is ninety-three billion lightyears across, and the rest of the universe, which may or may not be infinite. It’s a lot to try to hold in your mind.

After exhausting my knowledge on the subject (which could have been accomplished on a much shorter drive), I glanced in the rearview and decided to get my son involved. He’s precocious and likes to be included.

“Well, son, what do you think? Is the volume of the universe infinite, or is it finite but expanding faster than the speed of light, or is it static and somehow bounded?” (I suppose I’m kind of a jerk, but at least I left out the part about quantum fluctuations.) He promptly replied: “What?”

I tried again. “What do you think, son: is the universe infinitely large?” Again, “What?”

I made a third go at it: “How big is the universe?” He was silent for a few seconds. Then he said, “Big to us and small to God.”

Simultaneously humbled and proud, I no longer felt like the smart one in the car. “That’s a wonderful answer, the best possible answer.” No other words were spoken on the matter, and really no other words need to be. At least not by me.

God, though, did speak something else on it, lest this be to us not only a big universe but a big, hopeless universe. He spoke before all other words, before even his own words that called this physical realm into existence (13.8 billion years ago, I’m told). Before and beyond all that, there was another Word, which is always being spoken. And thus it was that God found a way to fit inside this place, this little universe that is much too small to hold him. The most miraculous thing about the Incarnation is that the universe did not immediately burst.

And while he was in it, he spoke a few more words. He said that when it comes time for us to leave the universe, we ought to go out through the narrow gate. Then he did leave it, briefly, and then he came back a few days later, and afterward, that gate was not quite so narrow as it had been. In fact, it was stretched immeasurably wide because he himself had passed through it. So we, too, can now pass through, as was his purpose. But it also remains narrow. Like the universe it adjoins, it is both big and small: it could accommodate the entire human race, yet you might easily walk right by it without even noticing. Many people do.

But on that day when he returned, when he gloriously arose from his three days away, I imagine that for a moment the universe was indeed filled with infinite light and everything was infinitely bright. And enough of that light remains for us to find the gate — to find our way from this place into the other one, the one that is truly infinite.

Sincerely,