In this liturgy we celebrate The Truth about God, about what He is. God is the Trinity, he is Three-in-One, the Father, the Son and the Spirit. There is nothing more mysterious, nothing more profound, that we can say about God than that. He is, at the same time, many and one.
But more, that is not only what He is in himself. That is what He is for us, in us. In the Gospel of John, Christ tells the Apostles, “I must go back to the Father, but I will send you the Spirit, and together we will come and take up our dwelling in you.” The Mystery of the Trinity tells us what God is, so it tells us what God’s people must be.
The Father reveals himself as the Creator. The Son reveals himself as Saviour. The Spirit reveals himself as the Spirit of holiness and truth.
Creativity. We can never make the world or anything in it more than what God intended it to be. But we certainly can, and certainly must, see to it that such things are never less than God intended them to be. For us, creativity is really a matter of rearranging the elements of creation so that they are made better than they were.
Anytime that we rearrange ourselves, our world, or help those around us to do so in such a way that there be strength where there was weakness, peace where there was turmoil, companionship where there was isolation and loneliness …. anything that we do that enables us or those around us to look at the world and say as God says, “It is good” – that is truly creation. It is the work and the will of the Father.
Yet there is certainly that in the universe in which we cannot take delight. There is, in a word, sin.
In the Son, God responded to the fact of sin in the world with salvation, and so must we. In Christ’s life, the mark of salvation was the Cross and Resurrection. So must it be in ours. The second person of the Trinity took upon himself the worst that sin could do and overcame it, not be a show of greater power, but by a show of greater virtue. Christ brought to bear on all the evils of creation a divine patience, a fidelity, a persistence, a willingness simply to endure when is all that can be done, and a constant, constant forgiveness.
And finally, holiness. We are led by the Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, to call the world away from its values, its practices, when those are unreal, dishonest, superficial. What is God’s plan for the world? How does He intend creation to be used? How does He intend us to treat one another?
In the Spirit, we must be able to answer these questions, clearly, unhesitatingly, and by our witness, our examples, call the rest of the world to do the same.
Fr Andrew