Posts Tagged ‘How are we Trinity’

Being Made in the Image and Likeness of God

Sunday, May 26th, 2013

Trinity Sunday

Prov 8: 22-31; Rom 5: 1-5; Jn 16: 12-15

Dc. Larry Brockman

 

It is one of the main things we believe as Christians.  It is the topic of today’s readings.  It is the Holy Trinity.  And it is something we struggle with our whole life to grasp; but the reality is that it is beyond us, it truly is a mystery.  We are simply called to believe in the Trinity.  But that doesn’t mean that we can’t appreciate the meaning that the Trinity has for us.  And that is what I would like to talk about for a few minutes today.

First, all three persons of the Trinity were there at the beginning and will live forever- the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  That‘s three persons, but one God, the Trinity.

God the Father is who we think of when we first think of God.  He is the Lord of the Old Testament.  He is the all-powerful author and creator of all things, visible and invisible.  Our psalm talks about the Father, about how awesome and large all that He created is.  And the psalm poses the question, “What are humans that you are mindful of them?”  Another way of saying that is that this person of the trinity seems so large, distant, remote, and powerful, that He is Transcendent, meaning unapproachable and beyond understanding; so much so that we humans can only fear how we could ever approach Him.

But wait a minute, because God the Father sent His Son, the second person of the Trinity, to us.  The Son is the Word of God, or the enabler.  As the Word of God is spoken, it happens.  And so the Word of God became flesh and lived among us.  And that did something for us that appears to be a paradox with the concept of a transcendent God, a remote God because that made God very close to us.  Yes, Jesus Christ had a body and lived amongst us.  He showed us the way, which is recorded in the Gospel.  Indeed, God become man, lived as we do.  We call that the immanence of God, because Jesus was as close to us as any other human could be.  And He is still immanent to us in the gift of the Eucharist, Holy Communion, which we will all share together in just a few minutes.

Lastly, the first reading talks about the Holy Spirit, the third person.  He is the breath of life, the inherent wisdom behind all things.  We are made in the image and likeness of God.  And so, we have the Spirit within us- it is the life force we all feel and experience, like when we breathe and have thoughts and understand things, even things beyond what we can touch and feel in this world.

Now, there a few things about the Trinity about which we should reflect.  Note that these are three social persons- they inter-relate with each other.  They are not isolated.  The Father begets the son, who acts as his agent and does His will.  The Son loves and communicates with the Father.  The Son gives up his life for all of humanity to atone for our sins and imperfections so that we may share in the Son’s inheritance- eternal life with the Father.  The Son promises that the Father will send the Spirit to dwell within us.  The Spirit lives within us, and acts as our counselor and advocate and inspiration.

What does this mean for us?  Well, since we are made in the image and likeness of God, it means we too are begotten by the Father; we possess the Spirit or life force; and we are called upon to do the will of the Father.  And that will is that we love each other as the Father loved the Son and the Son loved us.  And we are called upon to be social creatures as well.  We are not gods unto ourselves, because that would not reflect the image and likeness of God.  God the Father is not selfish.  He is other directed, sharing somehow with equal status with the Son and the Spirit; and willing to share Himself with us.

And so we learn from the Trinity that if we are to live up to our creation in the image and likeness of God, then we will love each other as God loves us;  We will do the Father’s will by the inspiration of the Spirit;  And we will welcome and relate to each other as a community.  Can it possibly be that simple?