The Human Face of God

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31; Psalm 8; Romans 5:1-5; John 16:12-15

At the Last Supper, Jesus said to his disciples: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But the Spirit of Truth will come and guide you into all the truth, taking what is mine and declaring it to you, and all that the Father has is mine.”

It is difficult to get our minds around the concept of God as a Trinity – three persons in one God. That is the way it’s supposed to be: the Trinity was never intended to be a concept that we actually understand. In fact the Trinity, as a coherent thought-out doctrine, does not actually appear in so many words in the Scriptures. The Trinity is a way of thinking that developed in the first four centuries of the Church as Christians tried to hold together seven affirmations that do appear in the Scriptures.

So here are the seven affirmations – brace yourselves! (1) The Father is God. (2) The Son is God. (3) The Spirit is God. (4) The Father is not the Son. (5) The Son is not the Father. (6) The Spirit is not the Father or the Son. (7) There is one God. And the doctrine of the Trinity is not so much a way of explaining how all seven of these affirmations can be true at the same time – I don’t think it’s the kind of thing that one can ever explain or comprehend. The Trinity is more rules for how to speak, and more importantly how not to speak, in ways that honor all seven of these affirmations.

One of those rules, which as far as I know was first articulated by St. Augustine of Hippo at the end of the fourth century, goes like this: When the persons of the Trinity act towards each other, each one relates to the other in a unique way – the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Father, the Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son – but when the persons of the Trinity act towards the created world, they always act as one. Because there is only one God.

So earlier in John’s gospel, when Jesus gets in trouble for being too merciful and giving out healing a bit too freely, Jesus says: I’m just doing what I see the Father doing. Or in today’s gospel: The Son is not the Father, but the Son does exactly the same things in the world that the Father does. All that the Father has is mine, Jesus says, and when the Spirit comes the Spirit will not speak something new – the Spirit will speak what the Spirit hears and will take what belongs to the Son and declare it to you.

This is why the Anglican theologian and former bishop N.T. Wright says:  When we say that Jesus is God, we do not learn something about Jesus, we learn something about God. It’s not like we already know who God is, and we wonder who Jesus is, and then we figure out – oh, you know, God, you know who God is, well Jesus is God too. That’s not how it works. The way it works is that we see Jesus, and because the Son does only what the Father does, what we see Jesus doing tells us more about who God is than we could ever figure out on our own.

And the place where Jesus most clearly reveals who he is as the Son, and therefore where Jesus most clearly reveals who the Father and the Spirit are, is on the cross. There is a kind of theology which is very common in some churches in America that sees the cross as pitting the Father against the Son – God the Father is very angry about sin and wants somebody to die, God the Son agrees to be the sacrifice, and so Jesus winds up saving us from the Father and the Father’s wrath. This is not just a very scary and gruesome way of imagining God, at least God the Father – it is also not orthodox Christian Trinitarian theology. Father, Son, and Spirit are one God, acting towards human beings and all of creation with one mind and one will. When we see Jesus, because the Son only does what he sees the Father doing, we are also seeing who the Father is. When we hear the Spirit speaking within us, because the Spirit does not speak on her own but speaks only what she hears, we are hearing what the Father says.

And so it is in the cross that we see that God does not claim the power to tell others what to do, but rather lays down power in order to serve others. In the cross we see that God does not use violence even for self-protection but rather disarms the opponents of God with mercy and compassion and healing. In the cross we see that God does not attack the vulnerable and the weak and the different and the excluded but rather identifies with them – what you do to them, you do to me. In the cross we see that God can embrace even death and unjust suffering for the sake of the life that is stronger than death. In the cross we see how to live as fully realized persons in the face of death because we no longer fear the power that death has over us. This is not just who Jesus is, this is who God is. This is who God has always been, even if we didn’t always know it.

And this, I believe, is why Jesus tells his disciples at the Last Supper, I have so much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. I have not yet gone to the cross, you have not yet experienced resurrection, you have not yet stood with me in my death in the waters of baptism and received from me a share in my resurrection life – and so if I tried to tell you now all that I could tell you about who God is, you would not be able to bear it. There are things that we don’t tell children because we know they don’t yet have the life experience to understand them, to fully grasp these things, to live with that knowledge about the world – they just aren’t ready to bear it. But one day they will. 

Jesus assures his disciples at the Last Supper that there is more, much more, they will come to know and understand about God that he has not yet been able to communicate to them in words or deeds, because they aren’t yet able to bear it. But the Spirit will lead them into all truth, and this truth is not something new or different, it’s been the one and the same God speaking and acting all the time. But we will come to see it and know it and live it in ever deeper ways, as we come to experience more and more what the death and the resurrection of Jesus shows us about who God really is.

Paul gets at this in our short reading from Romans today. “Therefore,” the reading begins – that’s always a little annoying to start a reading with “therefore,” we’re jumping into the middle of an argument. In the first 4 chapters of Romans, Paul makes the point that we are justified by faith, that our relationship with God is not based on our works, not based on anything we’ve done, not a reward for our piety or our good deeds, but simply because of God’s mercy and grace. And therefore, Paul says as chapter 5 begins, therefore, since we are justified by faith, we don’t boast about anything that we have done. We don’t point to our piety or our good deeds as something to be proud of before God. No, Paul says, we only boast about two things. One, we boast of our hope of glory. We are impressed with the resurrection life that God has promised to give us as a free gift. And two, Paul says, we boast in our sufferings. We are impressed with the opportunities that we have been given to share in the death of Jesus so that we can also share in his resurrection. As much as we can bear – that’s how much we can share in the love that God is.

In Jesus, in his life and his ministry and his teaching and his healings, and above all in his death and in his resurrection, we come to see who God is – all of God, the whole depth and mystery of God, as much of it as we can bear. In the Spirit, we continue to be invited to share in the life and the work of God in our world, all of God, the whole depth and mystery of God, as much of it as we can bear. And we have learned to bear it, because as we learn and see and experience more and more, even though we do not really understand the mystery of God, we learn and see and experience that God delights in us and wants our flourishing, that God can be trusted, that God is good.