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Many of us had shows that we watched or binged during the Pandemic. One of mine was the comedy Community. The show follows a study group made up of misfits in a local community college where everything seems to go hilariously wrong. One of these mishaps occurs at a costume party. In the aftermath, two members of the group are sitting and talking. One is Abed, a person everyone seems to try and diagnose instead of utilizing his wisdom, and Troy, a former high school football champion who lost his scholarship to his original college of choice after getting injured at a party.
Troy is dressed as Eddie Murphy while Abed is dressed up as Batman. Their conversation starts out with Troy getting tips for speaking like Batman and descends swiftly into extreme silliness. As Troy tries out his Batman voice, he starts to comment on certain foods, leading to gingerbread men. Then he says to Abed:
“That’s one of my greatest fears.”
“What is?” Abed responds.
“If I ever, like, woke up as a doughnut.”
“You would eat yourself” Abed immediately replies, no emotion conveyed one way or another.
“I wouldn’t even question it” Troy says back.
“Mhm. That’d be tasty.”
Troy then states, “It’s cool to know other people think about this stuff too.”
Abed ends by saying, “Yeah. Yeah.”
What Troy says is extremely silly. It shows a side of him that normally he would keep hidden. Yet it thanks to his friendship with Abed that he is able to reveal himself more fully. It is a gift he gives to Abed, and it is one that leads their friendship to continue to grow throughout the show from this moment on.
Many of us have our own stories which might not be like that of Troy and Abed while still conveying the same level of sharing and trust. We may experience these with our spouses, mentors or mentees, or even our closest friends. Whether we are sharing or receiving, a great gift is being offered.
A friend and colleague of mine pointed out that the Trinity is a way in which God does this for us. In the Trinity, God is sharing a truth of God’s Self that we would not know otherwise. God does this for the specific and expressed purpose of allowing us to get to know who God is in a much more intimate way.
Sin, in its effect on us, separates us from the Love of God. This separation has often been described as a chasm we cannot cross.
In order to bridge this gap, God revealed another aspect of God’s Own Holy Self, the Son who is also called the Word in the Gospel according to John. This is the part of God that was willing to come down in the muddiness and dirtiness of it all on this earth. This is the part of God that was willing to risk the uncleanliness of human life in order to be a part of it and to be in community together with us. This is the part of God that was willing to come down to us in order to bring us back to Him.
God through His form as the Son creates the bridge to the chasm between us and God through the Cross. We now have a bridge in order to make our way back to God thanks to God as our Lord Jesus Christ reaching our to us first. Thanks to the outstretched hands of Jesus, we have the means to once again be in relationship with God, because God has revealed Himself more directly and fully to us.
Yet God’s revelation to us doesn’t stop there. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we now have the inward presence of God with us always, as we celebrated last week. That is the depth of our Lord’s love for us, that God would give us the opportunity to experience closeness and deepen our relationship with our Lord now and always.
God’s revelation as Unity in Trinity is a gift to us. It allows us to see God in a way we would not have been able to on our own. Thanks to the revelation of the Trinity, we have the means to come back in relationship with God. Through the Son, we cross the chasm of sin keeping us from our Lord and Creator of all, and through the Spirit we have that abiding presence of the Lord within us always.
On this Trinity Sunday, I hope you will look at the Trinity as the gift it is. Through God’s revealing of God’s Holy Self to us, not only do we know our Lord better, we can to be closer to our God in a deep abiding relationship, now and always.