May 31st
Holy Trinity
“God on the Move”
There has been a whole lot of deep theological thinking on the Holy Trinity over the centuries to try to make something hard to understand clear, and I could spend the next ten minutes trying to explain it to you, but instead let’s allow the scripture the Church puts before us today guide us. For today’s scripture shows us that the Holy Trinity has everything to do with God actively moving in our lives.
Moses says of God, “Come along in our company.” Paul says, “The God of love and peace will be with you.” (Specifically, he says, as the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you!) Why does God move in our lives? How does God move in our lives? In steps the Gospel of John… John 3:16 to be exact.
“And God so loved the world that…”
God the Father sent God the Son…
Why? “So we might not perish.”
How? Forgiveness = the Cross (as Peter says, “By Christ’s wounds we were healed.”)
And God so loved the world that…
God the Son sentGod the Holy Spirit…
Why? That we might have the power to forgive.
How? Jesus breathed on the apostles and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven and whose sins you hold are held.”
And God so loved the world that…
Now God the Holy Spirit sends you and I…
Why? Because we, despite being a stiff-necked people (according to Moses) and needing to mend our ways (according to Paul), we are the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church… the means through which Jesus Christ moves in our world.
How?
“Believe in God’s only Son” who teaches us to…Pray asking to be forgiven our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us…
“Believe in God’s only Son” who teaches us to…Forgive 70 x 7 times and not like the forgiven servant who then withholds forgiveness from another…
“Believe in God’s only Son” who teaches us to… Reconcile with our neighbor and then bring our offering to the Lord’s altar…
“Believe in God’s only Son” who teaches us to… Remove the wooden beam from our own eye, then we will see clear enough to remove the splinter in our brother’s eye…
In short, God the Father sent God the Son to forgive; God the Son sent God the Holy Spirit to forgive; and God the Holy Spirit sends us to forgive.
Forgive — Forgive — Forgive. It doesn’t get any clearer than that!