Trinity
This Sunday of the Christian year is commonly designated as Trinity Sunday. And so, let me share with you a brief musing on the Trinity by the writer and preacher, Frederick Buechner. As is often the case, he has given us poetry written as prose. He says a lot in just a few words. I just wish he didn’t demand that we re-study formal grammar to fully get it. I hope the quick “verb definitions” help. It is a great reading to sit with as a devotional one morning. I hope you enjoy.
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Alan
"The doctrine of the Trinity is an assertion that, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, there is only one God. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit mean that the mystery beyond us, the mystery among us, and the mystery within us are all the same mystery.
Thus the Trinity is a way of saying something about us and the way we experience God. The Trinity is also a way of saying something about God and the way God is within himself, i.e., God does not need the Creation in order to have something to love because within himself love happens. In other words, the love God is, is love not as a noun but as a verb. This verb is reflexive (a verb that reflects back on the subject, God) as well as transitive (a verb that act on anything, even us).
If the idea of God as both Three and One seems far-fetched and obfuscating, look in the mirror someday. There is (a) the interior life known only to yourself and those you choose to communicate it to (the Father). There is (b) the visible face which in some measure reflects that inner life (the Son). And there is (c) the invisible power you have in order to communicate that interior life in such a way that others do not merely know about it, but know it in the sense of its becoming part of who they are (the Holy Spirit). Yet what you are looking at in the mirror is clearly and indivisibly the one and only You."
— Frederick Buechner