'A feast which invites us to worship with awe the God who has revealed himself to us'
Readings: Romans 5.1-5; John 16.12-15
We human beings have great difficulties when we try to talk about the reality which we call God. It has always been so. We can speak about God only because God has revealed himself to us. And we must be quite sure that human language must rely on images and analogies to be able to convey something of what we mean when we begin to speak of the supreme reality which gives all other realities their existence.
Our Christian faith inherits from Judaism a strict monotheism. We do not worship a multitude of gods as some people did in the past and some still do today. Our God is not defined by our race or tribe or culture or nationality. There is one God. And yet, as we read the Old Testament, we discover that God does not fit into neat human categories. Thus in the 33rd chapter of the book of Exodus we read two contradictory statements: in verse 11 we find, ‘The Lord God would talk to Moses face to face, as a man talks to his friend’ and then in verse 20, speaking to Moses, the Lord says, ‘My face you cannot see, for no human being can see me and survive’. Both these verses speak the truth and tell us something essential about God: in the first text we discover that God is close to human beings, so close that he speaks to Moses as a man speaks to his friend but in the second text God is revealed as completely separate from human beings, so separate that a man cannot see God and live. Our knowledge and, to some extent our understanding, of the nature of the one true God is steadily increased as we read the books which make up the Old Testament.
When we turn to the New Testament and to the Gospel record in particular we frequently discover God spoken about using differing words. Take today’s Gospel as an example: Jesus, speaking before his crucifixion and resurrection, tells his disciples that there are many things he has to say but they would be ‘too much’ for them at that particular time. He promises the disciples that when the Spirit of truth comes he will lead them into complete truth. Who or what is this ‘Spirit of truth’? A little further on Jesus says, ‘Everything the Father has is mine’. Who is this ‘Father’? We use this same language in our liturgical prayers. The Gospel tells us to baptise ‘in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit’ and this is what we do. So often we pray to the Father, through the Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit and our prayers conclude with a reference to Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Our opening hymn this morning was a particular prayer form which celebrates the Trinity – its three verses try to describe something about the vision of God which is communicated when we use the terms ‘Father’, ‘Jesus Christ’ and ‘Holy Spirit’ (the text of the hymn is given at the end of this homily).
Our use of these scriptural references and prayer forms lead others to ask whether in fact we do not have three gods. It is a very fair question – but we are quite clear: we do not believe in three gods, we believe in one God in three persons. In this formulation we are trying to make sense of the information which Jesus Christ has given us, information which has taken us beyond the understanding of God which can be gained from philosophy; which has taken us far beyond the revelation of God which is found in the books of the First Covenant. Jesus has revealed something new to us. It is ‘new’ in the sense that it was not known before he revealed it. And you will see that this implies that we believe that we have been graced to know more by faith about the nature of God than did our Jewish forebears and those who are Jews today. This additional knowledge adds a layer of increased complexity to our vision of God. We seek to communicate this using human language. But the difficulty with our language is that when we want to talk about the reality of God we have to stretch words and concepts to the uttermost – and even then we have to admit that we have failed to describe or define or do justice to the reality, the person we call God.
What are we to do, then? Do we simply say that we are dealing with a mystery? Do we give up the struggle to understand? God has blessed us with our knowledge, our ability to think, the gift of language. We should use these God-given gifts to try and understand what has been revealed – we should use them if for no other reason than we ourselves are made in the image and likeness of God, as the book of Genesis tells us. It is for this reason that St Augustine looked for traces of the Trinity in human nature – and he believed that he found them. The image of God the Father as a God who loves is built on one of these insights. The nature of love demands that there is an object to be loved – the Son who exists with the Father from all eternity. And the love which binds them together in some sense ‘completes’ the image. You will see that as we struggle to understand what has been revealed to us about the nature of God we also come to understand something of the marvel of our own being, our nature, our own calling – and that is a great gift. Nevertheless we must not lose sight of the fact that we are dealing with a profound mystery – a mystery which leads us into silence, into wonder, awe and praise. In the final analysis, therefore, today’s feast is not a celebration of numbers nor is it a feast which glorifies concepts – rather it is a feast which invites us to worship with awe the God who has revealed himself to us because he loves us and wants to draw us into union with him and with each other.
Opening Hymn:
Father, Lord of all creation,
Ground of being, life and love;
Height and depth beyond description
Only life in you can prove:
You are mortal life’s dependence:
Thought, speech, sight are ours by grace;
Yours is every hour’s existence,
Sovereign Lord of time and space.
Jesus Christ, the man for others,
We, your people, make our prayer:
Give us grace to love as brothers
All whose burdens we can share.
Where your name binds us together
You, Lord Christ, will surely be;
Where no selfishness can sever
There your love may all men see.
Holy Spirit, rushing, burning
Wind and flame of Pentecost,
Fire our hearts afresh with yearning
To regain what we have lost.
May your love unite our action,
Nevermore to speak alone:
God, in us abolish faction,
God, through us your love make known.
Rt Rev Cuthbert Madden OSB, Abbot of Ampleforth