Straight from God: we settle for that love exists, says the Reverend Gavin Tyte ({Photograph} by Pixabay.com)
“What’s love bought to do with it?“ requested Tina Turner in her 1984 hit. Effectively, because it seems: “The whole lot.”
Final Sunday was what we within the church name Trinity Sunday, and it was a celebration of what Christians name the Doctrine of the Trinity – the concept God is each one and three on the similar time: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Coincidentally, final week I additionally had a dialog with an in depth Jewish buddy of mine who stated she merely couldn’t get previous the concept of the Holy Trinity. Effectively, she is in good firm, as a result of it took the church some 300 years to cement the concept, nevertheless, to me, it makes excellent sense. I do know I’ve written about this earlier than, however maybe it wants explaining once more.
On an mental and rational stage, I agree, that one thing can’t be each one and three on the similar time, but, quantum physicists dwell with paradoxes on a regular basis, describing them as, “these issues that emerge from a conflict with instinct or with the established order”.
For Christians, God is a paradox. How thoughtless of God to refuse to suit neatly right into a field and defy my human logic! Nevertheless, as with many facets of God, it helps to look via the lens of affection.
We now have no downside with the concept love exists. We all know it intellectually, we really feel it emotionally, and we categorical it bodily. The Apostle Paul wrote that if we communicate with out love we’re like a “resounding gong or a clanging cymbal”. In different phrases, we might be all noise and no substance for it’s love that brings life to our humanity.
Final week, I additionally presided on the wedding ceremony of a younger native couple, and I’m reminded of the opening phrases from the wedding ceremony, lifted immediately from the Bible: “God is love, and people who dwell in love dwell in God and God lives in them.” That is adopted by the opening prayer which begins: “God of surprise and of pleasure: grace comes from you, and also you alone are the supply of life and love.” In different phrases, Christians recognise that God is love and the supply of all love for all humanity.
And right here is the factor about love. Love can’t exist in a vacuum. Love, by very definition, must be expressed. Love must be given away. Love wants an object to be the recipient of that love. So, take into consideration this. Earlier than creation, if God existed, and God was a single entity – solely “one” – how might God be love?
Wanting via the lens of affection, it makes excellent sense to me that God in God’s “oneness” would even be group, a triangle of affection with the Father loving the Son, the Son loving the Father, the Father loving the Spirit, the Spirit loving the Father, the Son loving the Spirit, and the Spirit loving the Son. Theologians name this relationship of affection the “cosmic dance” and I like that picture, because it expresses the enjoyment and intimacy of holding fingers and dancing with family members. The Doctrine of the Holy Trinity is totally according to our idea of affection.
And God, in God’s oneness, being the supply of all love, expressed that love via creation. God created an object of affection, the universe and all that’s in it, together with us, a part of God’s evolving creation that has been endued with godlike powers, created in God’s personal picture, with the capability to like.
But, we shouldn’t have to have nice mind to see that the world just isn’t appropriately. Is it?
There may be this glorious discourse in Chapter 3 of John’s gospel, the place a non secular instructor known as Nicodemus tries to understand what Jesus is speaking about. Jesus defined to him God’s rescue plan for humanity, closing with these phrases, “For God so beloved the world that he gave his solely Son, so that everybody who believes in him could not perish however could have life now and for ever. Certainly, God didn’t ship the Son into the world to sentence the world, however so that the world is likely to be saved via him.”
There it’s once more, God’s love, being poured out for our sake. How might a God of affection do something lower than to specific that love for humanity by reaching out to us; to assist us, to save lots of us, and to heal us.
That is the excellent news of Jesus Christ, and it actually is nice information. How will the story finish? I have no idea, however a minimum of I now have hope, demonstrated in a God of affection who won’t ever go away us nor forsake us, her beloved creation.
This week, could you are taking up that invitation to hitch in with the cosmic dance of God. Could you are taking the hand of Jesus and be welcomed into a brand new way of life – the way in which of affection. Persevering with with the opening marriage prayer: “Pour into our hearts that almost all superb present of affection, that we could worship you now with grateful hearts and serve you all the time with keen minds.”
Oh sure, and do not forget that when requested, “What’s love bought to do with it?” the reply is, “The whole lot.”
Amen.
• The Reverend Gavin Tyte is pastor at St Mark’s Church