Trinity Sunday 2020

El Greco / Public domain

When I was a boy, I had a friend who had a favourite Gospel verse. It is found in our Gospel Reading for this Sunday. The verse is John 3:16:

God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son,

so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost

but may have eternal life.
(from Jerusalem Bible)

The reason that Jesus was sent to the world is ultimately love. This idea of God being loving can be seen in the first reading today.

The Lord, a God of tenderness and compassion, 

slow to anger rich in kindness and faithfulness.

(Ex 34:6, Jerusalem Bible)

Already at the time of Moses, the people of Israel understood that their God was a God of tenderness and compassion. The tender and compassionate God planned for the world to be saved. He had created human beings who had rebelled against Him. The result of the rebellion is that we are separated from the life and grace that comes from God. However, God’s love is persistent, and He sent His Son to teach us the way to be reconciled with Him.

For God sent his Son into the world
not to condemn the world,

but so that through him the world might be saved.

(Jn 3:17, Jerusalem Bible)

The depth of God’s love is seen in the way this plan was executed. Even though He knows best, God will not force us to be saved. It would have been so easy for God to will that all humanity accept the message of Jesus and be saved. However, if He did that, He would remove an important gift he had given to all human beings: free will. He wants us to choose to be saved. Jesus was sent to show us the way to reconciliation. He will present to us what will lead to salvation and what would lead to condemnation. However, he is not here to convict us. Let me explain this with an analogy from the production line. Jesus presents us the criteria for quality control, but he is not the one that decides whether the products passes or not. He is not here to convict us. What convicts us is our choice.

No one who believes in him will be condemned;

but whoever refuses to believe is condemned already,

because he has refused to believe
in the name of God’s only Son.

(Jn 3:18, Jerusalem Bible)

Many people misunderstand this verse because of the English translation. The original Greek word for the word condemn means separate in the sense of sorting one thing from another. It was used in a legal sense to refer to separating truth from falsehood, or separating right from wrong. In that sense it can mean to judge. Jesus’s words mean that either you are saved or not saved. There is no middle ground: either you are saved or are separated from the saved. The translators of the Jerusalem Bible chose the word condemned as the opposite of saved. So if one believes in Jesus, he or she will be saved. If one does not believe, that person would then not be saved. There is also the either-or dynamic in the question of belief. The original phrasing of the Greek implies that the person has ruled out any means of believing. It is expressed here in the English as refused to believe. The whole idea of this verse could be expressed thus: Jesus presents the way. A person who is presented the way chooses to believe in the way or refuses to believe in the way. That choice would bring that person to salvation or condemnation. Many people ask: What about the people who had no opportunity to know Jesus? All I can say is that this verse does not refer to that group of people. Theologians speculate the various possibilities. I would simply state that the God who loves would find a way to present the way and allow the person to choose.

What has this got to do with the Holy Trinity? We say that God is Love. Love is something relational. Love cannot be present in an individual person existing in isolation; there must be at least two persons relating to each other. If God is love, then God is not one person in isolation. God is one God and yet not a single person. Within God, there is a relationship of persons. How is this so? As human beings, we will not be able to understand how there are three persons in one God. However the truth of God as Trinity is revealed to us by Jesus. In our Gospel passage today we learn of God sending His Son. In Jn 14:26, we learn of the Father sending the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit in the Son’s name. It is from various parts of the gospels that reveal that God is Trinity. The first Christians came to understand that God is one and yet three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We see this as early as in St. Paul who uses the names of the Holy Trinity to greet his friends in his letters.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God 

and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
(2 Cor 13:13, Jerusalem Bible)

Does this sound familiar? It was used as the greeting at Mass before 2011. The  present greeting uses the word communion instead of fellowship. When we use the word fellowship nowadays, we think of a social event. The life of the Persons of the Trinity is more than just a matter of social gathering. The three Persons of the Trinity live in one another. We use the word communion to describe the dynamic relationship of the persons in the Holy Trinity. Actually the Greek word found in St. Paul’s letter, koinonia, can also be translated into communion. Thus a more appropriate translation for the use at the Mass would be communion instead of fellowship. The word communion is very suitable because the body of Christ we receive is also called Holy Communion. The Eucharist we receive is the sign that we are participating in the communion relationship found in the Triune God. Thus, the communion I receive is not simply for me; it is meant for me to be part of the community we call the Church.

God loves and he wants us to be saved because He loves us. Being saved also means that we become reconciled and united in a relationship with God. So next time we make the sign of the cross, consider if we have made a choice to live the life of love that is God.