Trinity Sunday
As we prepare to celebrate Trinity Sunday, below are some reflections I wrote two years ago on one practical implication of God’s Trinitarian being:
On the liturgical calendar, this Sunday is Trinity Sunday. Trinity Sunday has been regularly observed since the twelfth century. Trinity Sunday serves as the capstone on the liturgical year “proper,” which, of course, observes the birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, followed by the descent of the Spirit on Pentecost. The church is now under the authority of the crucified, risen, and ascended Lord who is seated at the right hand of the Father, and it lives in the power of the Holy Spirit. It is in this reality that we find the truth of the Trinity.
Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father, and it is from the Father and the Son, as we say in the creed, that the Spirit proceeds, empowering the church to carry on the mission of God to restore all things to himself. As Christians, we talk about the One God – the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Thus, it is right that the liturgical year concludes with Trinity Sunday, as, ultimately, through the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, as well as the descent of the Spirit, we discover that God, the God in whom all things are being made new, is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
There are many implications of the doctrine of the Trinity, but I’ll mention just one, and that is that the reality of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit speaks to the highly relational nature of God. Basil of Caesarea, one of the Cappadocian fathers of the fourth century, writes that God is “a sort of continuous, indivisible community.” There is a community within the Godhead – a community marked by mutual giving, honoring, and loving. From the giving, honoring, and loving within the Trinity flows the abundant life of God’s creation. It isn’t surprising, then, that God intends his human creatures, his image-bearers, to live in relationship with one another as well.
In Genesis 2, we see the refrain of Genesis 1, “and it was good,” broken by “it is not good that the man should be alone.” We often think of that passage in terms of marriage, and that is, indeed, appropriate. However, the union within the distinct persons of the Trinity is not only experienced in marriage. As the late theologian Stanley Grenz wrote in his book Sexual Ethics, “God’s program to bring into existence the divine image bearer does not end with the institution of the male-female bond in the Garden of Eden. Rather, the divine design reaches completion only in the human community, the society of redeemed persons who through fellowship with Christ enjoy community with one another and thereby experience fellowship with the Creator who is likewise their Savior” (p. 65). Thus, while in marriage the husband and wife can reflect the unity of the persons within the Godhead, all members of the Christian community can both experience and reflect this unity in diversity.
Grenz goes on to say that while married couple can reflect the “exclusive” love that exists among the persons of the Trinity, because there “is no other God but the Father, Son, and Spirit” (p. 194), single persons, in their friendships, can reflect the reality of “the universal, nonexclusive, and expanding nature of divine love” (p. 195). So, whether in marriage or singleness, but more than anything in the church, we can experience and reflect the profound love and creativity of our God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
As we come to worship this Trinity Sunday, I’m reminded of a quote from Gregory of Nazianzus, another of the fourth-century Cappadocian fathers. He writes, “No sooner do I conceive of the one than I am illumined by the splendor of the three; no sooner do I distinguish them than I am carried back to the one.” May we all be drawn into this profound mystery of our Triune God, and, as we are, may we experience our unity in the midst of diversity, trusting that, as we do, we bear witness to the world that our Triune God is beauty, truth, and love.
Peace,
Chris
Artwork: “Trinity” by Andrei Rublev, c. 1411 or 1425-27, tempera, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow