Trinity Sunday 3.6.12
Google makes it very easy to find images – millions of them!
These days I like to include a picture on our newssheet to
illustrate the readings. It is usually easy to find a picture
showing an aspect of the life of Jesus – albeit with the risk of
falling into Sunday school sentimentality.
The feast of the Holy Trinity is more difficult. How can God
be pictured? To Jews, Moslems and Calvinists, the very
suggestion would seem idolatrous, blasphemous.
Anyway I succeeded in finding a picture of the Trinity –
you’ll have seen the result. (I avoided using a copy of the
very familiar Rublev icon of Abraham and Sarah entertaining
the three men – as so many of us have it on our walls.)
The picture I chose dates from 1430 and is by an unknown
Austrian artist if you are interested. I like its crudity, the way
it seems almost humorous to modern eyes. At first glance it
seems the exact opposite of a sophisticated attempt to
portray God as Trinity, with an overweight dove for the Holy
Spirit, and old man for the Father and a pained youth for the
Son, three but hardly three in one. We could dismiss it as a
curio from long ago and as many do the, Christianity that
goes with it.
However I’d like to suggest that it could actually take us into
the heart of God. Why, because it shows the relatedness at
the heart of God, the relationship of Father, Son and Holy
Spirit. God the father is full of paternal love as he supports
the dead body of his son. Jesus in his suffering reaches out to
suffering humanity. The Holy Spirit broods over all,
suggesting the divine presence. Look more closely and you
sense the Trinitarian unity in the composition.
In the West if we approach the Trinity at all, we do so as a
kind of intellectual puzzle, something mathematical to be
solved, a matter for male philosophical discussion. My
Google image search threw up the diagrams that accompany
this approach.
In the Eastern Orthodox Church the perception of God as
Holy Trinity comes out of the experience of worship and of
prayer. The Trinity is not meant to be understood – it is
meant to be prayed in the ebb and flow of the Divine Liturgy.
Today’s picture belongs to an altarpiece; western as it is, it
too is meant to be prayed.
Today’s readings can help us to pray the Trinity.
Isaiah was granted a vision of the Holy God in worship, he
then responded to God's call and was sent out to serve. He
described what he saw in dramatic terms – God on a throne,
his robes filling the temple, the praise of the seraphs, the
shaking building, the smoke. In the threefold seraphic cry
of 'Holy, holy, holy', the church fathers saw a reflection of the
Holy Trinity. When we pray we too are drawn by the Triune
God and commissioned for service.
As I’ve already said, relationship lies at the heart of God. St
Paul writing to the Romans, explores our relationship with
God. The Holy Spirit enables us to enjoy the intimacy of
Father and Son as God's adopted children – abba father. In
praying the Trinity we are drawn into deeper relationships
with our fellow human beings.
In today’s Gospel St. John tells how Christian life involves a
dramatic rebirthing and spiritual transformation such as
Nicodemus underwent. Although it took five centuries of
imaginative prayer for the doctrine of the Trinity to emerge
fully we can see its roots in St. John's Gospel. In talking about
the turning around of Nicodemus’ life St John refers to the
activity of God, of Jesus and the Spirit. As we respond to the
message of Jesus, we too are invited to participate in the
divine life of the Holy Trinity.
To close, the Holy Trinity is not meant to be understood, nor
can it be solved like a puzzle. God can’t be caught by reason.
Rather we are meant to be caught up in the life of God the
Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Holy Trinity is
to be prayed. As we pray we are drawn into the divine
dance, the relatedness at the heart of God. As we worship,
singing Holy, holy, holy we are sent out to serve, cleansed like
Isaiah, reborn like Nicodemus.
With our whole heart and voice we glorify Thee, we
praise Thee, we bless Thee, God the Father unbegotten,
the only-begotten Son, the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete, the
holy and undivided Trinity.
For Thou art great, and dost wonderful things: Thou
alone art God. To Thee be praise, to Thee glory, to Thee
thanksgiving forever and ever, O blessed Trinity!
Amen.