Trinitarian Embrace/A Place of Belonging

“The advantage of believing in the Trinity is that we live as if it is real! As if the cosmos around us is actually beyond all else a community of unspeakably magnificent personal beings of boundless love, knowledge and power.” John Ortburg

“God’s aim in human history is the creation of a community of all-inclusive loving persons with Himself included as the primary sustainer and most glorious inhabitant.” Dallas Willard

“At the center of the universe is intimacy, a deep, abiding, tender, affectionate belonging. . . Jesus tells us it is for that intimacy we were created and redeemed. . . All our longing is longing for this intimacy. All our hungers are finally hunger for this; all our thirsts are ultimately thirst for the passionate belongingness of God.” Darrell Johnson



At the heart of the universe is a circle of love. A relationship of ever giving and receiving, moving in and out of one another without defense or demand. Interpenetration even. What a sexy word! I’m speaking, of course, of the Trinity.

(Last week was Trinity Sunday in the Church calendar.) I don’t think I can remember a sermon on the trinity that has captured me like a few books (listed below) have. Honestly, I can’t remember a sermon about the trinity at all! Can you? Author Michael Reeves suggests that the growing atheism of our day may parallel the retreat of the Church's teaching about the trinity. How accosting, if true.

I don’t mean a message about the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I mean a message about what it’s like to live within their circle of love and why it matters. If the heart of the universe is a circle of love as I’ve suggested, What is like in that circle? “Instead of projecting our own ideas of the godhead (like the Greeks and Romans did),” says Reeves, “we can study their characters in the Scriptures. Each one loves to shine the light on the other.”

“The good news is the answer is not a total mystery,” according to Darrell Johnson, “. . . For the Second Person of the Trinity has come to earth and taken on our earthliness, clothing Himself in our flesh and blood. And, as one of us, He lives out, in human form, the dynamics of life within the circle of God’s knowing of Himself. When we read the New Testament gospels, we are reading the revelation of what goes on within the Trinity!” Jesus came to earth to show us what a well person looks like. And He lives in constant communion with the Father and the Spirit.

Jesus thrives in a community of belonging, acceptance and freedom. His home is “an eternity filled with intimacy, joy, servanthood, purity, power, creativity, and peace,” according to Johnson. And get this: We can live in this inner circle, too!

As my study and experience of this dynamic and abundant love affair grew, the center of the Christian story began to shift.

Beforehand, a sin-as-the-center of the story swirled about my narrative all the time: Why God was mad. Why Jesus came and died. How I manage my and others’ offenses. Sin as the hub. Living from that story was exhausting and filled with shame. Dallas Willard refutes this kind of “sin-management” discipleship and instead says, “It is being included in the eternal life of God that heals all wounds and allows us to stop demanding satisfaction. What really matters, of a personal nature, once it is clear that you are included? You have been chosen. God chose you. This is the message of the Kingdom.”

I exist to love and be loved by the Trinity. With relationship at the heart, I sense an invitation to freedom, creativity, and abundance. No longer am I on a “sin hunt” forever demoralized by my own failures. No longer do I live by guilt that God is not getting what He deserves from me. Instead, He is getting everything He wants from the Son and the Son from the Father. And the Spirit is inviting me to give God the worship He deserves. We’re moved by the Spirit to enter in, not because we’re motivated by guilt, but because--once tasted--the invitation is irresistible!

A friend of mine recently had an “aha” moment. She characterized her relationship with God as simply a sin-and-repent route. It’s all she knew, a well-worn path of wandering away and shamefully returning. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. The ruts were deep. There must be more to my relationship with God, she sighed. Where is the joy?

And it hit us both. We were born for a circular love, an embrace, not a linear one. "The journey is both repetitious and progressive, we go both round and upward,” says W.B. Yeats. We are born to be caught up in the dance, the perichoresis, of God’s love affair. Not just to hunt for sin and return the route head bowed, but to be healed, chosen and included in a community of belonging.

Does this mean I’m soft on sin? Resoundingly no! I have tasted and seen its devastation. I rely by faith on the Son of God (Galatians 5:20). Shifting my gaze from missing the mark to experiencing their presence expands my soul. Somehow my longing for the Trinity’s presence also dissuades me from sin. What a magnificent mystery!

Now, I am on a “love hunt”—how can I keep step with this beautiful, dancing circle of affection and delight? How can I put myself in the best posture to hear the invitation of the Spirit? They are worthy!

What would happen if you shifted your gaze from your sin to the soft embrace of the Trinity? I really want to know.

JUDY

P.S. I quoted heavily from Experiencing the Trinity by Dr. Johnson and Delighting in the Trinity by Reeves. And here's a great podcast about the insufficiency of "sin management" which includes a Q & A with Dallas Willard.