Celebrating the Mystery of the Trinity
Scripture teaches there is only one God.
Yet this one God exists eternally as three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
One divine essence, three distinct persons who are fully and equally God in eternal relation with one another.
The Father loves the Son. The Son loves the Father. The divine, personal love between the Father and the Son is the Holy Spirit.
In other words, scripture teaches that at the heart of reality is a loving relationship — a divine dance of mutual indwelling and joyful reciprocity.
Every Advent Season the mystery of the Trinity weaves its way into the forefront of our consciousness, disturbing our tidy categories of what is possible.
We celebrate together God the Son entering human history to reconcile sinners back to himself.
As the Nicene Creed famously puts it, “God from God, Light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made; of the same essence as the Father"
We remember that through Jesus we are welcomed in to the inner life and love of the Trinity; that in some way similar to mother Mary, we may also become partakers of the divine nature.
It is all a mystery.
The church did not create the mystery.
But the church has safe-guarded the mystery.
And every Advent season we do more than safeguard the mystery, we celebrate the mystery.
“Once in our world, a stable had something in it that was bigger than our whole world.”
We remember that when God entered history, he was not to be found in the palaces or amongst the princes — not in halls of the famous, or on the guest list of celebrities.
Secular historians passed over His advent in absolute silence.
Instead, in the midst of the hay and dung and stench of the animals, on the margins of respectable society, in the middle of poverty and scandal, with fluttering hearts and clammy hands, a frightened young couple held a child that was more than a child.
A child who whispers to us that a loving relationship is at the centre of the universe.
Because God is love.
And God is with us.
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