Looking Forward to Trinity Sunday

A Meditation on understanding the Holy Trinity

Written by Dan McDonald

 

            Earlier this week I put my two cents into a conversation about the benefit of celebrating Trinity Sunday.  I withdrew when I began to believe an argument or debate about the value of Trinity Sunday was going to take place.  I am glad I withdrew for we do not learn of the Holy Trinity through doctrinal debates, or by the power of reason, or by analogies from nature.  We learn of the Holy Trinity by being brought into the presence of God through Jesus Christ by the power and influence of the Holy Spirit.

            For those of us who do make a yearly journey in the life of faith under the tutelage of the church calendar, the recognition of the Trinity in Trinity Sunday follows all the proclaimed events of the Gospel and the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.  It is after the calendar has presented us the events of Christ’s life; from his promise in advent, to his birth at Christmas, to his being made manifest in Epiphany, to his going into the wilderness in Lent to his sufferings, death, burial and resurrection in Holy Week to his lingering with the disciples and his ascension and then after the giving of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.  Only after these events we celebrate Trinity Sunday.  I submit to you that this is for good reason, for it is only as we journey through life discovering the promises of God the Father, the fullness of Jesus Christ the Son, and the blessings of the Holy Spirit that we come to recognize the truth of the Holy Trinity.  For we do not learn to believe in the Holy Trinity by philosophical logic or by analogies from nature, or by discussions and debates with theological texts; but we learn the Trinity in truth only through our communion with the life of God in Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit.

            We begin to learn this truth of the Holy Trinity even in advent.  In advent, it is as if we are the people of the Old Testament who have heard the promise that through the seed of the woman the serpent would have his head crushed by the promised descendant.  We look forward from that promise for the coming of that promised Son of the woman, the seed-bearer, she who would be most blessed among women.  Our hopes focus on a son born in Bethlehem to Mary who has agreed to let the word of God come upon her and form a new child in her womb, a new beginning for humankind.  He is born on Christmas Day.  Then through the season of Epiphany we are given glimpses of who he is; the promised Messiah and the Son of God.  We learn that this son of Man is more than a man, or a prophet, but that he is the Son of God.  We are amazed at his boldness when he says to religious leaders “I and the Father are one.”  They pick up stones to throw at a blasphemer, but another kneels down to the ground in prostrate worship; wrap his arms about him and says “Depart from me for I am a sinner” even as he will not let go of him.

              Then one night around a table he prepares us for his death.  It is a death we don’t want to believe.  We vow to be strong but we prove to be weak.  He says something strange about how it is better for him to leave us otherwise we would never receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  We don't want that.  We want him never to leave, to always be in front of our eyes.  Surely nothing could be better than seeing him, touching him, hearing him, walking with him throughout life.  Even after he has suffered even to death we do not understand.  We feel so alone when he ascends out of sight.  But we make our way to Jerusalem for we obey but do not understand.

            Then on the Day of Pentecost, the great signs take place, the Spirit descends and the Gospel is proclaimed.  Men and women by the thousands believe.  The Spirit descends upon us, upon the Church of the Living God.  We begin vaguely to understand that to have the Spirit of the Holy One indwelling our very beings is an even greater presence than simply walking beside the Savior or even touching his wounds with our fingers.  The Spirit of Christ has taken residence within our own beings.  We learn that Christ is present within us by the Spirit and we are in union with Christ.  The only better way to understand someone than to walk beside him throughout life is if somehow his spirit and mind could take up residence in our being.  This is the advantage we now have in the Holy Spirit.  We pray for the Lord to make us tender to the least presence of sin, for we learn that the Spirit can be quenched or insulted and so his presence must be honored with our reverence, godly fear, and yet in his presence we know not fear but joy.

            A weak has gone by after celebrating Pentecost on the calendar.  We begin to realize that we have waited for God's promise in advent, have received the promise of the Son at Christmas, and have been granted the indwelling of the Spirit at Pentecost.  We therefore confess our belief in “one God the Father Almighty . . . and in Jesus Christ his only begotten Son . . . and in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life.”  We have believed upon Father, Son, and Holy Spirit because we have been granted to be given glimpses of God as the Almighty never seen, as the Son come into our world, as the Spirit hidden from sight but always present.  We have been introduced to this Living God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  We have come to believe in the Trinity because this is the Living God whom we have known in the life of faith.

            We begin to understand that this doctrine of the Holy Trinity enables us to see the world differently.  We begin to see that in the Eucharist we partake of Christ by the Spirit in holy agreement with the Father who loved the world and thus gave us his Son.  We understand or at least vaguely sense that the persons of the Trinity are always in unity both in essence and purpose.  There truly is but one God.  We cannot explain this mystery of the Trinity, and can understand that others will not be satisfied with our descriptions, but we are given the bread and the cup.  We are reminded that we in the Church are also one.  We are many members, but we are one people, one body, one blood, one living Church partaking of one bread and one cup.  We are partaking of the divine nature and as God is one in the unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; so are we who partake of the bread and cup one in Christ, by the Spirit to be presented complete and whole to the Father.  The I residing in me is discovering his oneness with brothers and sisters of every nation, tongue, and tribe.  We who have been created in the image of God are many members united in one body.  We who were created in the image of God have been created for unity in our redeemed humanity.  We discover that being created in the image of God means being one in body with a brother and sister who shares from the cup the divine and human lifeblood.  One and many; God and man, Holy Trinity the Church as his body.  Mystery surely, truth surely, our faith and our hope.  We confess we have learned the Trinity not from logic of reason, nor from analogy of nature; but by the life we have been granted by the Spirit in the Son unto the glory of God the Father.  This is the new life of Him which we partake in the Holy feast.  Thus we believe in God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.