“100 Years of Solitude” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez has been described as ‘the greatest novel in any language of the last fifty years’. I own a copy. But I haven’t read it - not past the first 100 pages. The writing is exquisite. I can see why it is judged so significant, but it is so intricate, so strange, so complex that I struggled to remain engaged with it. It is still on my bookshelf. If anyone sees it, they might think I’ve read it, especially as I can say a little bit about it. But I have no doubt that I have missed out on so much of its richness and brilliance by not coming to grips with it more.
The Trinity is like that for many of us. We know it is a significant teaching for Christianity. We identify ourselves as believing in it and may have tried to come to grips with it. We can even describe the idea of the Trinity in some way. But, in our heart of hearts, we feel it is too strange a concept, too complex an idea to sit comfortably with our everyday faith. So we leave it on the shelf to be “read” only by theologians, while we get on with living our lives. ”What we don’t know can’t harm us.” Right?
But the doctrine of the Trinity is not just a doctrine. It fundamentally describes the nature of our God. If I was in a relationship, but didn’t want to know important things about the other person, it would be a very strange state of affairs. We might be fine on one level, but our day to day relationship would lack a depth of connection. Or how about if I was describing to you the character Nemo from the Disney film 'Finding Nemo'. I could tell you about what he does, what he thinks, what happens to him. This would give you a picture of him, but if I miss out the fundamental fact that he is a fish, the rest would end up rather bizarre and confusing.
God is Trinity. It is a fundamental fact about him. It is not just a clever way we describe him. It is who he is, who he always has been from before creation, and who he will always be. He is one God and three persons simultaneously, Father, Son and Spirit. That is not problematic for him, quite the opposite in fact. Nor should it be problematic for us. In fact, more than this, if we can grasp some of the richness of his trinitarian nature, our everyday relationship with him will be enriched and deepened. Conversely, we cannot properly know him day to day unless we delve into this foundational aspect of our understanding of him and grasp what it means to us in our daily lives.
My aim, in this series of blog posts, is to begin to unwrap the joy of knowing the triune God in our everyday lives, in our daily engagement with our God. We will look at how, thorugh the biblical story, God has been demonstrating his triune nature. Seeking this is not an academic task. We are not saying here is something intellectual you should know to better yourself (or to show off how wise you are). Instead, it is a very practical and life giving endeavour, essential for every disciple. To help us understand God’s action through creation, incarnation, salvation and kingdom building, we must see how God is acting through all three persons of his being and how this actually communicates an even deeper expression of his nature and love.
I hope you will join me for this journey.
