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Today we celebrate Trinity Sunday. It is the one Sunday set aside to reflect upon the mystery of the Three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in One God. Since the beginning of the Church, theologians, scholars and mystics have tried to reveal the Threefold Unity of the Almighty God in such a way as to help believers to comprehend the incomprehensible.
The Patriarch Athanasius even used the word incomprehensible several times in his Creedal explanation of the Trinity. Although the Church universal shares in common the Nicene Creed, Athanasius’ Creed preceded the Nicene Creed. In fact, the Trinitarian theology of the Nicene Creed draws heavily from Athanasius’ Creed. The Book of Common Prayer includes Athanasius’ Creed within its section of Historical Documents of the Church. While both of these Creeds depict the Trinity in doctrinal language, the mystics often used words to paint pictures of the profound beliefs of the Church. One such mystic stands out for me, Hildegard of Bingen.
During the 1200’s, Hildegard, who was posthumously declared a Doctor of the Church, gives us a visual description of the Trinity in her book Scivias. Hildegard is known for the many visions described as Illuminations that came to her throughout her lifetime. These Illuminations are illustrations of the doctrine of the Church. Her writings enable us to see the divine through her eyes.
Of the Trinity, Hildegard gives us a beautiful picture of the Three in One. She writes, “Then I saw a bright light, and in this light the figure of a man the color of a sapphire, which was all blazing with a gentle glowing fire. And that bright light bathed the whole of the glowing fire, and the glowing fire bathed the bright light; and the bright light and the glowing fire poured over the whole human figure, so that the three were one light in one power of potential.”
Hildegard then interprets the vision speaking as a prophet in that she states she is writing down what she hears directly from the Living Light of which she is witnessing. The bright light is the Father God. The sapphire man is the only begotten Son of God and the glowing fire is the Holy Spirit. All of these Three Beings form the One Almighty God.
Hildegard describes Their Essence of Unity with these words, “But the Father is not without the Son, or the Son without the Father, or the Father and the Son without the Holy Spirit, or the Holy Spirit without Them; for these three Persons are inseparable in the unity of the Divinity.”
It is interesting to note that Hildegard’s writings and descriptions as bizarre as they may sound to us have been honored by the Church as sound doctrine for centuries. In fact, they are accepted as orthodox. Hildegard’s description helps us to see the Oneness of the Trinity in that the Three Persons are inseparable. This is a challenge for those who believe that God and Jesus can be worshiped separately.
As we have seen through Hildegard’s eyes, Jesus is the center of the Trinity through whom the Father and the Holy Spirit live and breathe and have their Being. In Hildegard’s words, “the Father is declared through the Son, the Son through Creation, and the Holy Spirit through the Son incarnate.” Jesus, the only Begotten Son of God, for Hildegard is the manifestation of God’s love. He is the love gift from God for the salvation of all of humanity.
As the Apostle John tells us in his first letter, “God’s love was revealed among us in this way; God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.” It is because of God’s love for the fallen human species that God sent us His only Son, Jesus the Christ, to save us from ourselves. Because we have fallen through our disobedience from God’s grace, God’s only Way to rescue us was by giving of Himself to us through His Only Begotten Son.
Yet it took the actions of all Three Persons of the Trinity to accomplish this awesome task. First the Father God had to be willing to release His Son into this fallen world in order to redeem us. In essence, our salvation began in the heart of the Father God whose love for us is beyond our comprehension that He would willingly sacrifice His only Begotten Son for creatures who willingly turned against Him. From the broken heart of the Father God the Way for our salvation began.
Yet without the workings of the Holy Spirit to bring the Son of God into the world through the womb of a Virgin, the Redemption story of humanity would not have happened. We would have remained in our sins as a hopeless creation; mortals who had broken faith with their Creator and fallen from grace. The same Holy Spirit that breathed the first breath of life into human beings changing them into living souls brought the life of the Son of God into the Virgin’s womb. Joining Creator with Creation, the Son of God became flesh and was made into a man.
Because of Jesus’ love for the Father, the Son of God in obedience to His Father left the glory of Immortality to take upon the mortal corrupt flesh of a human being. With this act of humility, the Son of God overcame the unsuspecting Power of Arrogance who held humanity in captivity. The Devil, who had tricked humans out of their state of grace and led them astray from their Creator, could not even fathom such an act of sacrificial love. Through Jesus, God the Creator poured out His Life upon a rugged cross, to set us free forever to live with Him and through Him. We who had become spiritually dead were given the gift of eternal life through Christ’s sacrifice. Only the perfect sacrifice of God through Jesus the Christ could pay off our infinite debt.
The gift of eternal life for humanity hung in the balance in the Garden of Gethsemane as Jesus struggled with finishing the task He was sent to do. His words to His Father, “Not my will, but yours be done”, set the course that forever changed the history of humanity. Jesus’ obedience to be our sacrifice gave all of humanity the opportunity to come back into God’s grace.
It took all Three Persons of the Trinity to redeem humanity. All Three Persons’ actions were done in love, because God is Love. God is the love that is incomprehensible. This is the true mystery of the Trinity in that God loved us and continues to love us. Even after Jesus returned to His Father, He did not want us to be alone on this earth. So the Father God and Jesus sent us the Holy Spirit to guide us and to keep us in constant communion with Him. Empowered by the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, we are given the gift to live and breathe and have our being joined with Christ and through Christ with God our Father. The Trinity is the Living Light through which we have been given eternal life.
Jesus has promised us, “All that the Father has is mine”. May we rest in that assurance knowing that we, who have been bought with such a priceless sacrifice, now belong to the Father through Christ. May the Holy Spirit keep us in the love of God forever.
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