Jun
11
Written by:
Dennis Atwood
6/11/2009 9:25 AM
Each year on the heels of Trinity Sunday, I feel the need to offer a postscript to the sermon. But I never do. I just leave my words out there—which may be the best way to handle such a deep topic.
The idea of one God in three persons, three-in-one, is just too high above my puny brain to comprehend and explain adequately. In fact, the problem with trying to get a handle on the concept of Trinity is that we always wind up reducing God to some trite symbol or flimsy illustration—a bit like nailing Jell-O to the wall.
The brilliant St. Augustine concluded after ten years of study and writing: 1) The Father is God. 2) The Son is God. 3) The Holy Spirit is God. 4) The Son is not the Father. 5) The Father is not the Holy Spirit. 6) The Holy Spirit is not the Son. And then, after these six statements, Augustine adds one more. 7) There is only one God.
Got it. Here’s the thing. The God we Christians worship and serve is expressed and experienced as Trinity. But too often Christians tend to camp out with the person of the Trinity we feel most akin to, e.g., Baptists and Jesus, Pentecostals and the Holy Spirit, liberal Protestants and the Father-Creator. Like the friends we keep, we prefer a God who is most like us.
Over the past several years, however, I have found myself drawn deeper and deeper into a journey toward a more Trinitarian faith. God is not only Jesus, or the Father, or the Spirit, but all three and yet one. The practical challenge is to learn how to think and live and pray in a more Trinitarian way on a daily and weekly basis.
It helps me to daily think of God as Father who has created all things, who sent Jesus the Son to redeem all things and provide humanity with its most clearly focused view of God, and who now by the Holy Spirit indwells and empowers Christians to be the living presence of God in Christ in the world today. Thinking, worshiping, praying into the Trinity enables me to better serve God the Trinity.
So I stumble on toward a more Trinitarian faith, and a more Trinitarian church…
Heavenly Father, I pray that this day
I may live in your presence and please you more and more.
Lord Jesus Christ, I pray that this day
I may take up my cross and follow you.
Holy Spirit, I pray that this day your fruit may ripen in my life—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Holy, blessed and glorious Trinity, three persons and one God, have mercy on me.
Amen. –John Stott, Through the Bible Through the Year. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2006:296.