The Happy Life

In my April 24^th blog (“Three-In-One”), we looked at the three parts of the Trinity in action, as described in that week’s Scripture texts. This Sunday is Trinity Sunday—a day when we celebrate the unity of our triune God. The Trinity is not an easy topic, but it is one well worth exploring, since it is a key aspect of our faith. In his book, Delighting in the Trinity, Michael Reeves tells us “[I]t is only when you grasp what it means for God to be a Trinity that you really sense the beauty, the overflowing kindness, the heart-grabbing loveliness of God.” (Reeves, Delighting in the Trinity (2012) InterVarsity Press, p. 9).

While none of the Biblical writers used the word “Trinity” in Scripture to describe God, the Trinity is a scriptural truth. There are many references to the three parts of the Godhead, often in the same verse(s).

For example, when the resurrected Jesus appeared to his disciples on the evening of that first Easter, he referenced the three parts of the Trinity:   “Again Jesus said, ‘Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.’ And with that he breathed on them and said ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” (John 20:21-22).

Another example is in the second reading this week. Peter notes in his Pentecost sermon: “This Jesus God raised up, and of that we are all witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.“(Acts 2:32-33).

C.S. Lewis gives us his version of how the early church came to understand the triune nature of God: “People already knew about God in a vague way. Then came a man who claimed to be God; and yet he was not the sort of man you could dismiss as a lunatic. He made them believe Him. They met Him again after they had seen him killed. And then, after they had been formed into a little society or community, they found God somehow inside them as well; directing them, making them able to do things they could not do before. And when they worked it out they found they had arrived at the Christian definition of the three-personal God.” (Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952) HarperOne, p. 163).

Our purpose in life is to become part of the family of God. As adopted children of the Father, we seek to become like his Son—to imitate Jesus. Reeves suggests that “The Spirit not only enables us to know and love Christ; he also give us the mind of Christ, making us like him . . . At the heart of our transformation into the likeness of the Son, then, is our sharing of his deep delight in the Father. In our love and enjoyment of the Son we are like the Father; in our love and enjoyment of the Father we are like the Son. That is the happy life the Spirit call us to.” (Reeves, Delighting in the Trinity p. 95).

Open your heart and mind to the Holy Spirit. Invite him into your life and discover the happy life within the family of the triune God.

Diane Cieslikowski Reagan