June 15, 2003
Deuteronomy 4:32-3,39-40 +Romans 8:14-17 + Matthew 28:16-20
Any way you look at it, as a disciple of Jesus Christ, as a theologian or as a philosopher, thinking about the Trinity inevitably leads to reflections about relationships. It is more than a theological concept. It is more than a metaphysical exercise. It is the core of our creed over which blood has been spilled, and countless hours of study, rhetoric, and deliberation mark our history with councils in far off places looking again and again at this wonder of God’s self giving and self revelation.
I avoid the word: “Mystery.” It leads us to suspect that we cannot understand, and then we excuse ourselves from the wonder and awe it can stir in us. Understanding is not the issue. Experience is. This is the experience that marks the Christian. Just as touching a door post and reciting the shema marks the Identity of Jews, and facing the direction of the holy shrines with one’s forehead on the ground marks Islam, the Sign of the Cross marks the Christian. In gesture and in word, the Creed is proclaimed, the bond is renewed, and the experience is acknowledged.
The experience of the Trinity is the ultimate acknowledgement of God’s Loving presence. The three most essential questions that lurk in the depth of the human soul are stilled by the experience we call Trinity. Do you love me? How much do you love me? Will you be here tomorrow? The God of the Christian tradition speaks to the human soul and quiets the fear and anxiety that these questions sustain. “Do you love me?” “As much as I love myself”, says the God in whose image we are made. “How much do you love me?”
“Enough to send my only Son to be with you in your darkest hours.” “Will you be here tomorrow?” “My Spirit will be you everywhere and forever.” No mystery here except the mystery of unconditional love which with our best efforts, we just can’t quite master.
No mystery here except the mystery of love’s power to forgive and to heal. This day calls us to wonder and stand in awe before the God-gift we have received. This day calls us to raise our hands again more confident than ever that we who are signed in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are a people embraced in love. More than chosen, we claimed as God’s own and exist in the intimacy of the divine family: because “God so loved the world.”
We celebrate this feast after Easter and after Pentecost. The risen Christ and the Spirit complete for us the experience of God we have been given. The God we acknowledge and have come to know day in and day out is a God locked in with humankind. We believe in One God we are about to say: a God who is one with us, a God who knows no distinction between heaven and earth. a God who by the power of the Spirit wills to be known, to be seen, to be heard, to be loved. Our life in the Trinity expresses our own identity and our mission in these days following Pentecost. We are sent, now as was Jesus to reveal this God we have come to know
and to let others see what we have seen, that they too may become children of God and share in our inheritance. All they will see, all they will hear, all they will know is you and me. To see the children is to see the Father.