God’s Revelation to Us
This Sunday is Trinity Sunday, when we call attention to our belief that God is Three Persons in One God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is hard sometimes for us to grasp, since we experience each other and all creatures as individual, separate beings.
What I try to remember is that the doctrine of the Trinity is how we Christians articulate what we believe to be God’s revelation of God’s self through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Jesus’ disciples experienced Him as the Son of God. They experienced the Holy Spirit as God, which we heard last week. As good Jews, they also believed in one God, not a pantheon of gods in which the Greeks and the Romans believed. So, even though I could look up my notes from seminary and get all into the language of the theologians and philosophers of ancient times, this doctrine, as mysterious as it is, comes from the experience of those who followed Jesus and received the Holy Spirit.
Another thing to remember is that what God has revealed to us about God’s self has been in terms of God’s relationship to us. In our Gospel reading (John 3:16-18), Jesus says, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” What God has revealed about God’s self, above all, is love. I see God as a Being of perfect love, a Being of perfect relationship. And as a perfect being of love, God went outside of God’s self and created the universe.
The mystery of the Trinity is the mystery of God’s love for us. Again, we hear in our Gospel reading: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”
In our first reading from Exodus (34:4b-6, 8-9), after God has passed by Moses, Moses bows down in worship and asks of God: “If I find favor with you, O Lord, do come along in our company. This is indeed a stiff-necked people; yet pardon our wickedness and sins, and receive us as your own.” It’s not only the ancient Israelites who were a “stiff-necked people.” We all are, but that has not stopped God from loving us and seeking to heal us!
A third thing to remember is that the doctrine of the Trinity reveals who we are and who we are called to be. As was explained to me in a class on early Church history, if we believe that God is One in Three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and we believe that we are made in the image and likeness of God, we are actually created to live in community; to live in relationship; to live in love. That is why St. Paul can write to the Corinthians in our second reading (2 Corinthians 13:11-13): “Mend your ways, encourage one another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you.”
But, oh man, we do not seem to hold much value in what St. Paul is talking about. It is in light of God’s love and how St. Paul tells us how to follow Jesus’ command to love, that I want to address the last verse of our Gospel reading:
“Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”
Frankly, I usually avoid such verses because I go back to the words quoted above about God not sending the Son to condemn the world.
In these times, we seem to rush to condemnation. Take your pick: immigrants, trans people, people of color, liberals, Maga people, etc. I believe that it is God, not I, who has the last word about where people spend eternal life. And even if I were to presume that I know who is condemned, it does not give me a license to mistreat them, or dehumanize them, or forget that God loves them, and that I am still called to love them as Jesus does and the Holy Spirit guides me to. Our belief in a Triune God calls us to love in order to be true to who we were created to be.
I welcome any comments or questions. Thanks for your time.
In The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
Phil, CP
