We just celebrated Trinity Sunday. It many ways, the doctrine of the Trinity is daunting. What do we mean by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three in one and one in three? Unfortunately, the creeds do not seem to help us in making the picture clearer, including the Athanasian Creed, which was supposed to answer all the questions. However, we say that the Trinity is one of the central doctrines of our faith. We say that we are Trinitarian. How do we get our hear wrapped around this daunting understanding of God? How do we make sense of it? What makes it so important?
To answer those questions, I would like to share a framework that has helped me. The Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three in one and one in three are all a way of saying that the very nature of God is relational. Relationships is who God is. God builds relationships into everything. When God created, God created a relational world. You and I were created in God’s image, which means we were created as relational beings. There is where we ran into trouble. We were given the awesome and terrible power to both make relationships and to break them. God’s design for us was that we would be in relationship with God, our true selves, each other, and the world. Sin, our breaking relationships, is where we find ourselves. We live in a broken world. We feel the impact of those broken relationships every day of our lives. The story of faith. The story of scripture is our breaking relationships, but more importantly, God restoring them. The cross is the ultimate sign of our breaking our relationship with God. In no uncertain terms, we said “No” to God by crucifying his Son. However, God, in love, is relational (Trinitarian) and God said “Yes” to us by raising Jesus from the dead on Easter and opening the door to eternal life. God will not let us go. In describing God, the Bible uses the word faithful. In the light of the Trinity, we can also use the word relational. God is at work in our lives to restore our relationship with God, our true self, others, and the world. May the work of the Trinity continue is us.
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