Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

“… The love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given us.” Romans, 5:5

There’s a story that’s told about an elderly Amish woman who went with her family to a shopping mall for the very first time.

The Amish family was mesmerized by dozen after dozens of stores, the lights, and the food court.

And then, for the first time in her entire life, the old Amish woman saw an elevator. She watched as an elderly man approached the elevator doors and entered. The doors closed. A minute later, the doors opened and a handsome young man who resembled George Clooney, exited the elevator. The woman then saw another elderly man get on, and a minute later saw a man who looked exactly like Brad Pitt step out. A third elderly man went in, and out came a Ryan Gosling look-alike.
At this point, her daughter approached her and said, “Mom, isn’t this place great?” “Yes,” said the older Amish woman. “Now, quick, go get your father.”

Transformation.

That’s what our faith is about – It’s all about being transformed by the relationships in our lives.

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity.

Remember, though, the very first Christians, the earliest disciples and followers of Jesus, did not understand God as being Three Persons in One. That concept of God took nearly 500 years to put into words that could even begin to attempt to explain it. 

The earliest disciples came to believe in, and fall in love with, the God who was Three-In-One through what they experienced.

And what they experienced was the man Jesus who died on a cross … and then rose from the dead!

This reality alone shook them to the core of their being.

Who ever heard of such a thing happening?

Their experience changed them, radicalized each of them so profoundly that they came to see Jesus as the very revelation of God in time.

Jesus was the face of God.

Jesus was what God looked like as a human being: loving, healing, caring, forgiving.

They also experienced Jesus always speaking of God as his Father. Moreover, they further experienced that whenever he prayed, Jesus called God, Father. He even taught them to do the same, as in “Our Father, who art in heaven ….”

Two thousand years later we often forget that no one before Jesus ever spoke of God in so intimate and personal a fashion. No one.

Jews at that time considered doing so to be outrageously blasphemous. To them, God was a Being so distant, so remote, and so holy that God’s name could neither be written nor spoken.

And yet, the earliest Christians experienced Jesus addressing God with the most intimate word of the times: “Abba” – the very same word a child used to refer to his or her Daddy!

Unheard of. Shocking.

This is what Jesus taught them:
God is our kind, merciful, and compassionate Father, and we are God’s children.
Since all this was so, the earliest disciples then experienced the ultimate reality:
Jesus is the Son of this Father. Jesus re-presented God as Father to the world.

And together, the Father and the Son had one project, one goal:
To make the world a merciful, compassionate place in which to live.

And this is where the Third Person enters the scene. The Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is Who the earliest disciples experienced at Pentecost, after the Son had left them. This is the One who breathed on them, energized them, animated them, and drove them to begin the great project of creating a community of believers – which continues to this day.  

And it is this very same Spirit that you and I can experience, even now, breathing into each of us the possibility of breaking through the limits we place on ourselves, opening doors of opportunity we feel powerless to enter on our own, pushing us ever forward toward living as Jesus did, motivating us to do what we never dreamed possible: reaching outside ourselves and embracing the “least of these.”
Together God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit create a Community, a Family of Love … the beating heart of the very universe in which we are blessed to live.

Nineteen hundred years ago, when the Christian community was still quite small, a theologian named Irenaeus described the Trinity in this way:
The Son and the Spirit are like the two “hands” of God the Father. Through these two “hands,” God acts “outside” of His own self. Through these two “hands,” God, in effect, reaches out and hugs the world.

In the view of Irenaeus, God becomes the Divine Hugger.
As we stand today to recite our Creed, let’s be even more conscious that our treasured belief is that our God is not just some abstract Being dwelling somewhere “out there” or “up there.”

Instead, let us again remember that our God is close, personal, intimate, and deeply engaged in each of our lives – even to the point of inviting us to be a part of a family of Love.

Transformation. That’s our goal.

Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as the old Amish woman thought it could be.
But, nonetheless, the Divine Hugger, the Holy Trinity, keeps egging us on, inviting us to take the risk, embrace the invitation, and follow the path that Jesus assures us will be the way to peace and joy and ultimate happiness.

The Holy Trinity is the God who “has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given us.”

Ted Wolgamot, Psy.D.