Trinity Sunday

TRINITY SUNDAY

Celebrating the Trinity begins the season "after Pentecost," or Ordinary Time. We will continue with Ordinary time into late Fall when Advent begins the next Church Year Cycle. Each year we celebrate Trinity Sunday the week after Pentecost. It is the deepest and most mysterious insight we have about God. 

Christians believe that the (One) God of Israel has revealed Himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We recognize that there is personhood in each, yet there is also a divine unity which is expressed by the term One God. Explanations only go so far, and the more precise they become the more likely they are to slide into heresy. Heresy frequently has the power to sound rational and reasonable, but the truth is Mystery cannot be explained. 

In Genesis 1 we read that God said, "Let us make the human in our image and likeness." The Hebrew word, 'adam, is sometimes translated into English as man (or human) and other times as a proper name, Adam. The modern assumption is that the singular man, Adam, is in the image of God, and I am sure that is partially true. However, it is also true that humanity is the image of God. All of us together are made in God's image. Herein lies one of the important aspects of the Trinity.

The New Testament often speaks of the church as a body (the Body of Christ). In Corinthians we are told that we who are many make up the one body. Individual organs cannot dispense with one another and still be a whole body. The Modernist approach is to see each individual human being as a separate entity. However, the corporate human nature which we share is often diminished in our eyes. We do not see ourselves as a person who is part of a unified whole. As there is One God (who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit) so there is One Human(ity) which is manifest in billions of people.  Jesus emphasized the import of love because love is the bond which holds the body together. As the Father loves the Son, so the Son loves the Father--and they live in each other, as does the Spirit. In the spiritual realm the simple laws of observable material reality do not hold sway in the same way. (I say observable because when I read about Physics at the atomic and subatomic level then even material reality seems to be filled with all manner of mysterious contradictions). My body can also be part of the Body of Christ. Jesus can live in my heart and He can take me into His heart. The Holy Spirit can fill me and make me my true self. What is true of me is true of you, as well. We both live in the same Lord and the same Lord lives in us.

Like fractals, each individual human is a smaller version of the one larger, all encompassing "human nature" which is in Christ. In other words, I am what we are, and all of us (individually many) together are the One. Trinity means that at its core, reality is a relationship (of love). Love is the ontological beginning point and relationship takes precedence over all things. Love is the most real and true. So, on Trinity Sunday, we celebrate an important insight into the meaning of the word God, but by extension we also come to a deeper understanding of what humanity is. Salvation is, primarily, the perfect union of humanity with the Lord--the life (Holy Spirit) of the Father forming us into the fullness of Jesus Christ (who is one with God the Father and one with us).

Perhaps the great value of teams is they are a sacrament of our unity. At its best, the local church should be a manifestation of the very unity of God, as members love one another and work together to bring others into union with the Lord. This is why there is no salvation "outside the church," because salvation is union with Christ, and Christ is one with the church. Those who are saved become the church, and none is saved outside of it. The challenge, then, is to become what we are--the Body of Christ, part of the Holy Trinity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal