The bible does not have a specific teaching on the Trinity nor does the term appear in scriptures. There are more than nuances in the New Testament, but none that declare and define our Triune God. We hear in our New Testament readings the sending of the Holy Spirit by Jesus Christ in union with God the Father, and the Holy Spirit will teach all that Jesus Christ has “said”. Also that all that the Father ‘has’ belongs to the Son. However, there is no declarative that God IS Father-IS Son-IS Holy Spirit-Three Yet One.
The Church’s teachings about the Triunity of God has a very complex history of over 1800 years of development. What else would we expect as we search for ways to describe an indescribable mystery Three Persons One God. If someone were to ask us to “define” the Trinity to them we might respond, “Well, I can describe to a degree what the Trinity is like”
Perhaps like many, I have felt my relationships with the Persons in God differ at times. (See what I mean about explaining). For one period I would be praying to God the Son, then God the Holy Spirit. I have felt, but cannot define or explain well, those unique Personhoods in God. Strange to say, at differing times in my life I felt closer to one of the Three persons than the others—sometimes I would pray to One to help me know and love the Other.
God the Father was a challenge for me when I was a youngster. My father suffered emotional illness and was tyrannical and abusive. Dad, in classic abuser behavior, targeted one of my sisters and one of my brothers as victims. Subject to explode with no apparent reason, his internal rage released was directed to my brother or sister, or my mother and even toward all of us. To see God as Father was quite a struggle.
Many years later, and thanks to the medical and psychiatric research post the Viet Nam War, I could understand that my father’s behavior was due in part to undiagnosed post-traumatic stress syndrome. Like so many young men, dad served in three major WWII battle sites. He was shipped from the freezing Aleutian Islands to the unbearable heat and humidity of the jungles in Burma, India. Leaving his wife at home pregnant with me, dad served as a medic and saw firsthand the horrors of War. He saw many of his friends killed or brutally injured. By his first leave back to Indiana I was three years old. Can you imagine the overwhelming contrasts from foxholes to vegetable gardens and a new baby? He spent a few weeks on leave and then was shipped to England via Australia. The memories of such horrific death and numerous buddies suffering severe injuries all around him, like many veterans, dad chose to keep locked inside his mind and heart. When I would ask him about the War he would shake his head and get teary eyed and leave the room.
It was not until I served in the Air Force that I understood how much war and death can change a person. Like dad I was assigned as a medic and saw the body bags coming into Travis, AFB of those killed in Viet Nam. Innocence lost once again as Americans were shipped off to a war that was not viewed by many as honorable, righteous or worthy of our deaths and injuries. Some families were given permission came to receive their loved ones upon release. They wanted to take the son or husband home for burial.
We reflect on the costs of our freedom with Memorial Day, Monday, May 30. It is a day on which those who died in active military service are remembered in prayers along with their families. One week later, on June 6, we honor the 72nd Anniversary of the Landing at Normandy, D-Day, when over 9,000 men died in the first night of the largest invasion in known history. We can only guess what that was like even with the historic photos and films of the invasion. According to a few living veterans of D-Day, the film Saving Private Ryan, more than any other War film, presents a close image of WWII and the crucible of Normandy.
How blessed we are because of those men and women who gave their lives for our freedoms. We live in this nation and take so much for granted—our liberties and rights, and even the freedom to celebrate and pray openly as this Sunday when we try to get our heads around such a mystery as the Trinity—God is one and uncreated yet three persons.
The primary message of such a great mystery is that God chose to create all things in relationship to others and God chose to reveal who God is—three Persons in relationship to One Another and present to each of us. We were not created to be loners. In fact, God said it in Genesis: It is not good to be alone I will create a mate. We were made to be relational beings and to live in relationships involving unity, love, and trust. Because we are by nature, driven toward relationships, we are also driven to be liked and accepted.
Life teaches us that without honesty and integrity, the relationships unravel into estrangement and division. Factions begin labeling one another. However, when we see ourselves in relationship to all creation we see ourselves in God and God in one another and comfort and peace evolve along with respect for differences and a view that all life is sacred.
Such words of comfort and faithfulness come to us in the gospel today. Jesus tells his disciples and each of us, that he will send the Spirit of truth to be an indispensable part of our lives, leading and guiding us in the ways of Jesus’ love and respect.
With Jesus—the only face of God we know, he shares the Father’s love with us and has sent Their Holy Spirit to live in us, to guide the goodness that is within each of us—as the crown of creation. If we would only believe how much love The Trinity has for us, how much hope in us; our lives would be the joy, peace, and happiness that are intended for us. Live that life beginning today—we know too well the price of anything less.
“I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. But when he comes, the Spirit of truth,
he will guide you to all truth.” Open our hearts and heads to His truth, Fr. Gordon