“…The Spirit of truth…will guide you to all truth. Everything that the Father has is mine.: for this reason, I told you that he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.” John 16: 12-15
It is not uncommon these days to hear people, who describe themselves as card-carrying believers in Jesus and the Gospels, state that they struggle with the concept of God as Trinity, described as Father, Son and Spirit in loving relationship. While I can hear their expressions of struggle, I wonder if they (myself included) have stopped to ask if Jesus’ close disciples were any better placed to understand what the content of today’s readings from Paul and John is all about. We surely have to venture into these readings ourselves but only after reminding ourselves that Jesus’ early disciples were not exactly a bunch of well-educated intellectuals. They were closer to being categorised as illiterate rather than scholarly. Matthew may have had some schooling, given that he was involved in collecting taxes and collaborating with his Roman masters. However, he may have been better versed in the strong-armed methods of extortion rather than having financial acumen. Yet Jesus seemed to have little or no hesitation in relaying to these disciples that God’s Spirit would be their guide in leading them into the way of truth and energising them with God’s never-failing dynamic love. If Jesus was able to say things like this to a lot who repeatedly professed their love for him yet left him totally unsupported in his darkest hour, then we are left with no room to excuse ourselves by saying this language of love and truth and Spirit guidance is totally beyond our comprehension. Maybe we have to make time to venture into being present to the God whose love for us is unceasing, boundless and given freely. True presence to another for whom we care strengthens the relationship between us. And let’s remember that we don’t have to earn God’s love. We have to accustom ourselves to experience it, reminding ourselves each day that the God who loved us into life does not abandon us, and that God’s Spirit of dynamic love is present deep within us.
Granting that none of us will ever fully understand the mystery of the loving relationship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we might have to begin by pausing to ask ourselves if we have yet grasped what it really means to love and be loved by those who are close to us. How would we fare if we were asked to define human love or to articulate what it really means to love another human being? And when we have done that, we might try to put into words what the writer of John’s First Letter means by stating: “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (1 John 4:8) A little later, John elaborated: “God is love and whoever abides in love abides in God and God in him/her.” (1 John 4:16)
We have all experienced both loving and being loved. However, I suggest it is quite a challenge to put into words what those experiences are like. And just how many of us could actually claim that we “abide in love”; that loving and knowing love is the most accurate description of our lived lives?
In today’s brief Second Reading from Romans, we hear Paul’s attempt to explain how we are touched by God’s love incarnated for us in the person of Jesus and vivified in us through the activity of God’s Spirit alive and working within us. Paul uses the unfamiliar expression that we have been “justified” – made just, forgiven of our sinful frailty and freed from all that locks us in or imprisons us, from feelings of gripping guilt and unworthiness, from being gripped by fear of a God in search of retribution or watching to catch us out, and believing that that life will not continue for us after our earthly death. Paul had come to understand what Jesus meant when he said to his disciples at the Last Supper: “Love one as I have loved you.” (John 15: 12) On that occasion, Jesus went on to add: “You are my friends…I shall not call you servants any more…I call you friends because I have made known to you everything I have learned from my Father.” (John 15: 11-15) Paul concludes by assuring his community (and us) that God’s love is poured into our hearts through the instrumentality of the Holy Spirit.
Let’s be clear: Paul and John are not offering us a theological treatise on the Trinity. Rather they are giving us insights into the love God has for us, made visible for us in the person of Jesus. What’s more, he added the promise that the Holy Spirit would fire us with the same love that had inspired him as he lived out his vocation.
God will always be beyond our comprehension. This celebration of God as Trinity is essentially an invitation to us to ponder the mystery of love that we know from experience but will never fully comprehend. It is also an invitation to ponder John’s statement that “God is love” and that God’s Spirit invites us to experience something of the dynamic love that binds together Father, Son and Spirit. Today’s readings are a lesson on love, especially on the love God has for each of us.