To rejoice God in the presence and power of The
Father, Son and Holy Spirit –
Even if we get Stones in our Shoes sometimes.
There are some things that we cannot put into words no matter how
skilled we are. It is difficult to capture a sunset in words, though it is not
hard to enjoy the sunset. A meaningful relationship cannot be tied down by a
description, yet it is still good to say why some relationships are meaningful
to us. Love cannot be fully expressed in words – it is beyond mere expression –
but it would be a sad world if we gave up trying to tell of our love. In the
same way, when we try to explain the Trinity we find that words fail us. The
mystery of Godhead cannot be contained to a neat formula and put in a box or
grasped by our minds. The majesty of God is beyond our comprehension. Yet we
need to communicate our experience and tell of the things of our heart. Often
what the mind cannot comprehend the heart can grasp.
In trying to describe the ‘Trinity’, St. Patrick suggested the shamrock
with its three shapes that made one leaf. Others have suggested body, mind and
spirit; three parts that you cannot fully separate and yet one being. Others
have suggested the sun in the sky. The sun provides the light in the world. The
light gives life to the world and in the light we can live and move. Let the
light remind us of Jesus who is the Light of the World. Even on the dullest of
days the sun still provides us with light. The sun also provides us with
warmth. Without the warmth the world would be cold and dead. In the warmth we
grow and live. Let the warmth remind us of the Spirit. Glory, light and warmth
– we can talk of them as separate things and yet they are bound together. One
would not exist without the other.
But the word ‘Trinity’ does not appear anywhere in the Bible, yet the
Bible is full of accounts of the Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer or Comforter.
The reading from Proverbs 8: 1-4 and 22-31 hints at ‘wisdom’ being God’s
assistant or
co-worker from the beginning: ‘I was beside Him, like a master worker,
and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before Him always, rejoicing in his
inhabited world and delighting in the human race.’ For God to have a
personality there needs to be at least another personality to relate to.
Personality is of the utmost importance because it is of the essence of the
Godhead. The way we reflect God’s image is through our personality.
There are only hints and expressions of the Trinity but there is no
doubt that our God is a triune God. We believe in God the Creator who made the
world and all that is in it. God created the world out of his own love and for
his love. We believe that God revealed himself to the world in Jesus. Jesus is
God incarnate. When the world strayed away from God and got lost in sin and
death, Jesus came to redeem the world through his love and to bring us eternal
life. Once Jesus ascended into the heavens, the Holy Spirit came to us and gave
us strength and guidance. The Holy Spirit is God. Yet there are not three Gods
separate from each other but One God. Hard to grasp with the mind, but the
heart will begin to understand if we give our attention to each person of the
Trinity. In John’s Gospel we have Jesus talking of the ‘Spirit of truth’ who
‘will guide you into all truth’. He also tells us of the Father and how he had
given all to His Son and that now the Spirit helps us witness to the world and
glorify Christ before the world, so we need to depend on Him.
So if we reflect God’s image through our personality and ‘the local
church is the hope of the world’ (a Bill Hybel’s quote); why am I, why are we
always trying to avoid putting my/our foot where I don’t want to tread? I find
this really difficult. Don’t you?
Whether we like it or not, we will come up against people and situations
which threaten our confidence and make it feel as if we’re walking on thin ice
or looking foolish.
Have you ever been in an embarrassing moment? You’ve walked for what
seems like miles with a huge boulder fighting for space in your shoe as I did
whilst away last week. This boulder prods and jabs at every opportunity as it
attempts to evict your foot from its previously comfy surroundings. You stop,
take off your shoe to reveal to the world the size of this enormous piece of
granite…..only to find it is a tiny pebble in the palm of your hand and to make
matters worse, you’ve only walked a short way. The embarrassment, the groans
and insults that everyone throws at you for complaining about, in essence a
speck of dust! But they don’t understand. To me and you, the piece of grit felt
like a considerable portion of the pebbled beach. You were just about to phone
whichever government organisation deals with the height of the pebble hills and
inform them that one of their pebble hills isn’t where it should be…it’s where
you don’t want it to be. I wasn’t really going to phone. You know what I mean!
Other people might think your complaints unjustified but for you and me
the pain was genuine. The discomfort was all too real. Nothing else felt as
important as putting the pebble mountain back where it belonged and recapturing
that feeling of comfort.
At times, it feels as if our lives are plagued by irritating little
bits of grit that are intent on annoying us at every opportunity. Sometimes it
is not the bits of grit that cause us discomfort, it’s huge rocks that have
placed themselves just where we want to walk! We have a choice. We can stop and
remove the grit or carry on walking! No contest! At other times it is not so
simple. We cannot always remove or avoid the rocks in our path; we need to
learn how to climb over them.
Of course, we always have the option of either stopping where we are or
turning around and going back the way we came. But God encourages us to go
forward and face the rocks, learn how to deal with them. In Romans 5, St. Paul
tells us, ‘We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ’ and a little
Later St Paul declares, ’God’s love have been poured into our hearts through
the Holy Spirit that has been given to us’. And that trials work for us, not against
us, and develop Christian character. How rich are we!
For some, ‘the rocks’ may be relationships or financial difficulties.
For other people it might be their career or education that is causing them to
feel as if their progress has ground to a halt. We can be certain of one fact:
we will never learn how to deal with these obstacles if we turn our backs on
them. Dealing with the ‘rocks’ takes courage; it often involves pain,
frustration and anger. It is at these times that God longs for us to ask him to
help, to get him involved and longs to teach us how to climb. It is never easy
but it makes for an interesting journey. Paul teaches us that we can have
peace, and we can have access into God’s grace, His joy, His hope, His love,
the Holy Spirit. And when we have given God the pebbles in our shoe or have
learnt how to climb the pebble hills then we will reveal the ‘Trinity’ to a
waiting world. A waiting world I hear someone say! Yes, there is someone in the
world out there who is waiting for someone in here to reveal the ‘Trinity’ to
them. This being the case what riches we have in Christ!
Questions:
In short:
Jesus was preparing His disciples for His departure to the Father. His
disciples understandably we're afraid and uncertain as to what would become of
them. He told them it was better that He go away because if He did not, the
Holy Spirit would not come to them. While Jesus was only able to be in one
place at one time because of His physical form, the Holy Spirit is omnipresent
and follows as well as lives in each believer and can be with them always.
·
What will the Holy Spirit tell the disciples?
·
What will Jesus tell the Holy Spirit?
·
Whom will the Holy Spirit glorify?
·
Does the Holy Spirit still speak today?
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