Intimacy with the Triune God

In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

If I were wise, I would stop right there and invite us to contemplate the mystery of the Blessed Trinity in silence, knowing that words are completely inadequate to describe the infinite God. But it is Trinity Sunday—the day set apart in the church year to reflect on the Trinity. From Advent to Pentecost, we relive the mighty events of salvation history—the incarnation, Jesus’ death and resurrection, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit which we celebrated last week.  During the rest of the year, which is called the season after Pentecost, or ordinary time, we focus on what it means to be disciples of Christ from day to day.   

Trinity Sunday is like a scenic overlook on a journey.  It’s a chance to stop, get out of the car and look at the beauty of God as God has been revealed in the story of our salvation.  It’s a time to look in awe and wonder at the holy mystery of the One in Three.

The most essential truth about God is that God is love.  But love is not simply a concept—it is an activity and a relationship.   And so, the revelation of God in Scripture and in our lives is the story of God’s active love and God’s relationship with us.  The Christian understanding is that God created, saved and filled us with the Spirit, all because of God’s love for us. 

The Christian understanding of God as Trinity only emerged in the context of Christ’s life and teachings.  According to the Scriptures, Christ was the Son of God,  sent by the Father, led by the Spirit.  Christ came from the Father and returned to the Father, sending the Spirit to be our advocate and guide.   References to God as Father, and as Spirit can be found in the Old Testament, and so can references to the Word, which Christians identify as Christ.  But it was only through Christ’s being and teaching that God was understood as Trinity.  Even then, it took several centuries of reflection and argument by the Christian community before they clarified the doctrine of the Trinity.

When you stop and think about it, the idea of God as both Three in One makes sense, because God is love, and love is always about being in relationship with another.  That is why Augustine referred to the Trinity as the Lover, the Beloved and Love.  A relationship requires two subjects, an “I” and a “Thou,” as well as the love that flows between them. 

So, how did Jesus reveal the Three in One?  Jesus’ whole life was grounded in an intimate relationship with God, whom he referred to as Abba, which is Aramaic for Daddy.  Followers of Jesus learned to relate to God as Father, and that became normative for Christians. For some of us in this day and age, the designation of God as Father can be difficult as we wrestle with the historic exclusion of women from the ministry and theology of the Church or with troubled relationships with earthly fathers.  But for Jesus, the relationship of father and son spoke of a deep intimacy, trust, compassion and tenderness.  Despite its potential difficulties, I believe that the image of God as Father is precious to us as well.  One of the main stories of a father in the New Testament is the story of the prodigal son.  The father gives the younger son his inheritance as he asks, and lets him go on his way.  But he never stops waiting for him and searching for him.  When he sees him coming from a distance, he rushes out to embrace him, even though he has thrown away his inheritance and degraded himself in every way.  The image of the father revealed by Jesus is the compassionate father who loves and forgives unconditionally.

Also, it is important to remember that Father is not meant to be an exclusive image of God.  Even though Scripture was written in a patriarchal culture, it contains innumerable feminine images of God.  Scripture describes God as a mother holding her child on her lap, a woman searching for a precious lost coin, a divine baker woman kneading leaven into flour to transform this world into the reign of God, a mother hen who longs to gather her chicks under her wings .  And there are non-gendered images of God such as the fire that burns and is not consumed, a rock, as a pillar of cloud and the sound of sheer silence.  God is ultimately beyond gender and even beyond words, as I mentioned earlier.    

However, the purpose of the revelation of God as Father is to invite us into intimacy with God.  That is always God’s purpose.  God’s purpose in creating us was to love us.  In fact, the whole act of creation can be seen as the outpouring of God’s love—love cannot be contained—it is always directed toward another, always expressed in relationship.  God is not just a creative force—God is an “I” seeking a “Thou” to relate to in love.   The love among the Three Persons of the Trinity inevitably overflowed into the act of creation. 

But we have not always responded to God’s love.  Human beings have turned away from God.  As the prayer book says, “we followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts.”  And so God entered into the world as a human being—to seek us out, to reach across the divide, to restore us to intimacy with God.   Jesus waded into the river of human experience with all its sorrow, alienation and loneliness.  Drawing on the infinite love of the Trinity, Jesus gave himself for us.  Through him, we are invited to the water of baptism to be washed and made new.  We are invited to the holy table to be fed with his own body and blood.  We are invited to become whole again, to give ourselves in love as God gives God’s self in love. 

And finally, the Spirit—it is through the Spirit that we receive the revelation of God as Father and as Christ.  It is the Spirit that opens our eyes to see God in the face of Jesus Christ, and to see God as Jesus saw God—as a loving and compassionate parent.   It is the Spirit that opens our hearts to God’s love, poured out for us in creation and in the redemption of the world through Christ’s death and resurrection.  It is the Spirit at work in us every day, helping us to grow in love for God and each other.  It is the Spirit that enables us to give ourselves in love, as God has given God’s self for love. 

We were created in God’s image—that means that we belong to God, and share at least one characteristic with God.  You can make a good argument that we share creativity or free will or language with God.  But if God’s abiding characteristic is love, then surely God’s image in us is revealed in our capacity for love.  And indeed, hasn’t Jesus revealed that love is the heart of our being and vocation?  To be a true human being is to be capable of self-giving love, in the image of God.  Like God, our nature is to be in relationship.  We are incomplete without love.  Our calling is to turn toward each of our fellow human beings and establish an “I”-“Thou” relationship with them.  The more we are able to give ourselves in love, the more complete we will be.  The more we grow in intimacy with God, the more we will be able to give ourselves in love.

The understanding of God has Trinity has profound implications, not just for how we understand God in the abstract, but also for how we live and move and have our being.  May we turn in trust to God the Father, follow Jesus with joy and confidence, and grow in love through the Spirit.  Blessed be God, Lover, Beloved, and Love.        

 The Holy Spirit was given to us to unite us with God and each other, to inspire, guide and console us—to keep us close to God.