We begin to contemplate Trinity Sunday in the best possible
place, creation. All contemplation of
God should begin there. Whether by
simply looking at the world around us and marveling at its complexity,
diversity, beauty and developing our sense of awe and wonder or by actually
studying these things, we begin by locating His majesty in all that surrounds
us, even to the vault of the heavens. We
begin, then, at our own insignificance when we consider His greatness, He is
all. The writer, by considering the sun,
moon and stars, what seem like the “big things” to us, the things that appear
to govern all things, discovers the majesty of God and then goes on to say,
“Many things greater than these lie hidden, for I have seen but few of his
works.” Powerful telescopes have allowed
us to see greater things, the things that govern these governors and powerful
microscopes, the large hadron collider and other tools have allowed us to see
those things that lie hidden because they are so small. This complexity should cause us to wonder how
it all fits together, how it all could possibly have come to be at all and the
mind that designed it.
John, after years of contemplation not of the physical world
but of the man with whom he spent those three years, those glorious and
incomprehensible three years, the man called Jesus, and says that He is the
Logos, the Word of God, there at creation.
It was in fact through His Logos, His spoken word, by which all things
were created. John begins His Gospel by
situating Jesus in creation, in beginning.
Only when we start to contemplate Him in this way can we see that all
else must find its place and purpose in that which pre-existed all things. His wisdom supersedes all other wisdom. By being before all things, His wisdom
necessarily is greater. In the end, He
is the very wisdom of God for us and to us.
The incredible reality of the incarnation, the word made flesh, dwelling
among us, the mystery of the majesty enfleshed, holds John’s attention and His
wonder, even after He saw it all, “we have seen his glory, glory as of the only
Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
The church is the creation of the Holy Spirit. Without Him, there is no church at all, only
people with opinions about God. The
Spirit of truth creates and sustains the bond of unity in the Church. It isn’t the creed that binds us, it is the
belief in the truth of those truths, which binds us together and that belief is
possible only because the Holy Spirit convicts us of their truth. Because of the indwelling presence of the
Holy Spirit, we know those things are true.
The only way I can believe in a particular God who created all things
but who is also Father, is because of the witness of the Spirit. I can believe in the incarnation via a virgin
birth only by the Spirit. I can believe
in His resurrection from the dead and my own, by virtue of the Spirit. None of these truths are self-evident, they
require the Spirit for us to know them.
The wisdom and the knowledge of God have the same source, Father, Son
and Holy Spirit.
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