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"A Love Story"
"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you." In that benediction Paul is affirming what the early Christians had come to believe about the nature of God and how God reveals who God is. How did they come to believe this? By reflection upon the Biblical narratives in the light of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ. Before their reflection there was the event of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. Before their reflection there was the grand story of God’s commitment to this world that came to be narrated in the Old Testament. Behind it all was their experience of God above, beside and within them, an experience of grace in which they were embraced, redeemed, forgiven; an experience of love in which they knew they had been created in love, would always be loved, and finally be loved through eternity; an experience of communion is which God was near and within aiding, guiding, shaping, recreating human life. The Apostles’ Creed tells the story of this God.
The Trinity was profound experience before it was articulated in a doctrine. True, the language in which the early church expressed its belief is difficult given the mystery of God and our human limitations with respect to the knowledge of God, and difficult because they were trying to avoid the pitfalls that emerged clearly. But the doctrine is vital to the life of God’s church. Every Sunday we commit ourselves to the triune God. It is not that these Christians came to know God first and then added something about the Trinity, no, they came to know God precisely as triune, precisely as God chose to reveal who God was to them. More importantly they saw that God is not about power and self-sufficiency, but God is about mutuality and love. The doctrine reaches down into the deepest recesses of our spirit and helps us to know the majesty of God’s presence and commitment to human beings and this world and to know the mystery of God’s love. Love is the most authentic mark of the Christian life. How do we learn that? From the triune God, the community of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Love among humans and within God requires community with others and a sharing of the deepest kind. The doctrine of the Trinity is an account of that community and sharing in the life of God. These early Christians did not talk about the Trinity because they had a special fondness for the number three. They did so because they had to say something about the particular God they had come to know in three particular ways: a Father who created them in love, a Son who had died for them all and enveloped them in grace, and a Holy Spirit making them into a new creation. This was not just any Trinity but a trinity of these three persons, yet one God. As John’s gospel says: "The Father is in me and I in the Father." The three dwell in each other, give and receive love to each other, make room for each other, are incomparably hospitable to each other. None of the three individuals stand alone, they are what they are in relation to each other, and always they act out of love. These interrelationships define God for us. They tell us something about God. God is not an isolated, single monarch who rules with an iron hand. God is a communion of equals united in mutual love. God loves and lives in community and wills us creatures to live in community. God is self-sharing, other regarding, community forming love.[1] That love overflows into the world God has made. We are part of an extraordinary love story. God is the gift-giving God. This is the way God related to us in Christ and in the pouring out of the Spirit, and it is the way God is and acts eternally. This Trinitarian way of thinking and speaking transforms our grasp of God’s power. True power is not dominating nor coercive, not manipulating or overwhelming. True power is life-giving, life-creating power. God’s power is strong enough to be for the other, to be vulnerable for another, to suffer with and for another, to rejoice with and for another, to give one’s all for another. The overflowing, abundant love of God shared with us in Christ and the Spirit draws us out of ourselves and into right relationship with God and one another.[2] Extraordinary! A divine community of mutual self-giving love overflowing into the world, into the church, into us, into our neighbors, into…..Extraordinary! A God who in the patience of such love keeps the future open, wills good and seeks justice. That is what Moses learned on the mountain. The Trinity plays a crucial role in defining who we are. It is vital for our faith, our worship, our practice. What does the Trinity mean for us?[3] It means we just don’t happen to be in this world by chance. The triune God created each one of us, together with our world. Yes, this world and we are corrupted by sin, but God remains faithful to God’s creation. What does the Trinity mean for us? We are not in the world to fend for ourselves in competition with one another while pursuing lives filled with as little pain and as much pleasure as possible; the triune God created us to live with God and one another in a community of justice and love. What does Trinity mean for us? We human beings have not been left by ourselves to deal with the results of our failures to love God and neighbor: the violence, chaos, suffering and wounding that taints all history and scars individual lives. God entered human history and through his death on the cross has reconciled human beings to God and one another. What does the Trinity mean for us? Not withstanding all appearances, time will not swallow us up into nothingness, and death will not win consuming all. And at the end of all things, this God will make our frail, fragile flesh imperishable and restore true life to the redeemed, so that forever we may enjoy God and one another. What does the Trinity mean for us? The evildoer will not ultimately triumph, nor will the wrongs we have done permanently mar who we are, nor will suffering have the final word. God will expose the truth about wrongs, condemn each evil deed, and redeem both the repentant perpetuators and their victims, thus reconciling them to God and to each other. How is this possible? By the grace of Jesus Christ our Lord, the love of God our heavenly Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit. As a great female mystic of the 13th century said:
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Harry Daniel