This year I got off easy...the peril of an associate homilist or preacher in the Western liturgical churches is that quite frequently the priest in charge will fob off the Trinity Sunday sermon on the junior preacher, then sit back and watch the games begin. Some stress over making sure they avoid the near occasion of heresy, others avoid the subject altogether focusing on a small piece of one of the readings for the day without touching on the larger subject, and some just waded in where Arius, Sabellius, Nestorius, and others just wouldn't go. No, this year I got to preach on Pentecost, and the rector of our parish took Trinity.
We really should ask if he is alright.
Still, I love the doctrine, the precision of the answers from long decades, even centuries of debate, the great remaining mystery, and the overarching love, constancy, peace, unity, integrity that is at the centre of this great mystery. We can spout off that the Father is not the Son is not the Holy Spirit but that there is one God, that there are three distinct persons with distinct characteristics, but only one Will, one Nature, one Being (until you get into Christology and the union of God and Man in Jesus Christ...but that's another Sunday!). The doctrine espouses love in that God is so full of love and integrity that each person indwells the other, each is full of the other two in God's own spectacular way, that each Person is totally for and in love with the other Persons, that there is never division, self-doubt, suspicion, second-guessing. Because the Persons are so united, in fact, the same Being with a single Nature that what One knows or experiences the Others do as well. The relationship is eternal and timeless, never starting, never ceasing. The Son is always begotten of the Father, the Father is always the Father because the Son is always begotten. The Spirit always proceeds from the Father, the Father is always sending forth the Spirit as part of Who He is. There is never any question, the trust is absolute.
God is Love as the Apostle John writes. The Love of God is evident in the One, Holy, and Undivided Trinity. The Love is God is so absolute and so pervasive that God created everything that is to express and share that Love. The Love is so pervasive that when God created rational beings He gave them free will so they could return love freely...at the risk that perhaps that love not be returned. When all went to Hell (literally!) that Love impelled God to reach out to effect reconciliation to all who would have it. That Love is so great that the indwelling the Trinity has between the Persons God wishes to share with us...Persons with a different Nature and different Beings, but still united through the redemption effected in the new Nature in Jesus Christ.
Many Evangelicals speak of having Jesus in our hearts. Many Pentecostals speak of having the Holy Spirit. They are correct...but there is so much more. God wants us to turn to Him so that the Persons indwell us, flowing over with the Spirit proceeding from the Father, taking on the new Human Nature given to us by the Only Begotten Son. With both the Son and Spirit indwelling us, because the Father indwells them and the Son and Spirit indwelling the Father, the Father also indwells us. That is the promise, that we be so filled with the Spirit that we are full to bursting with all three Persons of God Almighty, and proceed beyond this life into the new life at the Resurrection and become more and more perfect age after age, sharing the mystery and learning the Love that God has for us.
Freely offered, freely given, never forced, always present. May we all so put aside our pride and rejoice in that love.