"Understanding God"
Isaiah 6:1-8
Psalm 29
Romans 8:12-17
John 3:1-17
Today is Trinity Sunday, but we acknowledge the
Holy Trinity almost every Sunday.
“Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” is an ancient –- and very familiar -- way
of understanding God. Some churches sing
it in a Gloria Patri or a doxology. Others say it along with the sign of the
cross. And almost all churches use the phrase as part of baptism. But what does it mean, really, to speak of
God as trinity, as three in one, one in three?
The preacher Frederick Buechner explains it this
way:
Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit mean that the mystery beyond us, the mystery among us, and
the mystery within us are all the same mystery.
Thus the Trinity is a way of saying something about us and the way we
experience God.
The
Trinity is also a way of saying something about God and the way God is within
Godself, namely God does not need Creation in order to have something to love,
because within Godself love happens. In
other words, the love God is is love not as a noun but as a verb. ….
(Wishful Thinking, p 114)
So God is love in action, in the threefold way
that is a mystery. I’m talking about
capital M mystery, the kind of mystery that might better be called mystical,
and not the kind that is a problem to be solved. We are good at the latter, at solving
problems and figuring things out, but not so good at dwelling with
mystery. That’s a problem in itself,
because the life of faith, a life lived in, with, of and by God, is just that,
a life of dwelling in mystery.
If this isn’t easy for us we can perhaps take comfort
that it hasn’t been easy for our predecessors in faith either.
Look at poor old Nicodemus. He just didn’t get it, did he?
He came under cover of darkness to see Jesus, both
the darkness of nighttime and maybe also the darkness of his own doubt and
confusion. Perhaps he thought that his
interest in Jesus would be hidden in the dark, but instead he found himself in
the presence of pure light, the kind of light that exposed all his deepest
needs and desires and lack and longing.
He found himself in the presence of the Light of world.
He was drawn to Jesus by the physical signs he had
seen, but Jesus seemed to say that it was what could not be seen that was more
powerful. Nicodemus was firmly rooted in
the kingdom of the world and Jesus instead pointed him to the Kingdom of heaven
– whatever that meant.
And Nicodemus confused Jesus’ instruction to be
born from above as meaning that he had to somehow crawl back into his mother’s
womb.
He also thought Jesus was talking about the wind
when what Jesus really meant was the powerful breath of the Spirit blowing
wherever it chose.
We get a sense of how frustrated Nicodemus must have
been when he finally threw up his hands and said: How can these things be?
How indeed!
If Nicodemus, a learned man, a scholar of the Torah, a teacher of Israel,
couldn’t understand, what hope could there be for the rest of the people,
especially those like us who never had the chance to approach Jesus in person? How is it possible for us to understand God,
to comprehend this mystery? What is God
like? How can we know God?
Reflect with me for a moment on some of the ways God
is revealed in the Hebrew Bible. God is experienced
as a mighty wind, a voice, a rock, a pillar of fire, a sheer silence and the
sound of thunder. God is understood as a
nursing mother caring for her child, a shepherd, a king; a judge, a potter, a
lover, a father. And yet, none of those
understandings fully grasp all of who God is.
As the prophet Isaiah reminded us:
God’s thoughts are not our thoughts nor are our ways God’s ways. For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are God’s ways higher than our ways and God’s thoughts than our thoughts
(paraphrase of Isaiah 55:8-9).
As much as we might try, ultimately it seems God is unknowable. Except, except, God apparently wants to be
known so God comes to us in ways we can understand. As John Calvin said:
“For who even of slight intelligence does not understand that, as nurses commonly do with infants, God is [accustomed] … to ‘lisp’ in speaking to us? Thus such forms of speaking do not so much express clearly what God is like as accommodate the knowledge of God to our slight capacity. To do this God must descend far beneath God’s loftiness.” (Calvin, Institutes, Book 1, Chapter 13, Section 1)
In other words, God speaks to us in baby talk. God kneels down so we can see eye to
eye. God comes to us in ways we can
comprehend. We have an understanding God
who knows our limitations and responds to them, by approaching us in a whole
variety of ways, and even going so far as to become one of us. Jesus was both the Son of God and somehow
also God. John tells us that “The Word
became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a
father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”
But John also reminds us that “No one has ever seen God. It is the God the only Son, who is close to
the Father’s heart, who has made God known.” (John 1:14, 18) And Jesus has made God known to us as “Abba,” a
word that means something like “Daddy” or “Papa.” It is a term of endearment, expressing
intimacy and love. And Jesus’ Abba is
our own Abba, because we, too, are the children of God.
And that is two-thirds of the mystery. From the record of scripture we can
understand God as the author of creation, our father and mother, and as Jesus
our brother. But God is not limited to the
pages of a book, not even if it is the Good Book. The God who acted in the past is still at
work. God still breathes new life into
our world. And God’s life-giving breath
can be as powerful and unpredictable as a sudden storm, or as gentle and
refreshing as a cool breeze on a summer morning.
Our Triune God is the one in whom we live and
move and have our being – we live because God has created us, has birthed us into
life; we move in the world as Jesus moved, acting with compassion and justice
and mercy and acceptance and love; and we have our being by the power of the
Holy Spirit, who continues to breathe in and through us, inspiring us and those
around us.
And in the end, there is only one reason we can
ever even come close to understanding the mystery that is God and that is because
our understanding God loves us and calls us to respond in love.
Can we
explain or ever fully understand love – where it comes from, how it works, its
power and tenderness? When we are able to understand the mystery of love, then
we will understand God. Because God is
love – God who is the creator, transcendent and over all, high and lofty; God
who is our brother Jesus, walking with us in the sorrows and celebrations of
this life; and God who is as close to us as our own breath, the Spirit which
gives us life.
And
maybe it doesn't matter at all that we cannot understand God because God fully
understands us, understands us and still loves us. God so loves us; God so loves the world.
And for that, thanks be
to God: Abba, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.
