“The wind blows where it chooses, and you
hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.
So it is with everyone born of the spirit.” (John
3:8)
Several years ago when I was a volunteer chaplain at what is now called Jefferson Torresdale Hospital, I chanced to enter the room of a young guy who was having a pretty rough time. He was a talented artist who just had both of his legs mangled in an auto accident. When he saw me come into the room, he asked his other visitors (which probably included his mom and dad) to leave. “Father,” he said to me when we were alone, “I’m losing my faith.”
I listened as the patient told me all the really crappy things which had happened to him lately, and ending up in an orthopedic ward was not the worst of it. As the saying goes, if it weren’t for bad luck, he’d have no luck at all. Naturally, he wondered why God would treat him in so shabby a way when he hadn’t done anything to deserve it. I finally told him I thought it was a good thing that he was losing his faith. “Because, “I said, “I don’t think you have faith in God. You seem to believe in Santa Clause.”
Isn’t that always the way? Faith would be so easy if we had some definite answers. If good things happened to nice people and bad things happened to naughty people. Simple, right? But God never seems to work like that. We’re always forced to re-examine what it is we mean when we say the word “God.” If we get stuck with a Sunday School understanding of God as some invisible man in the clouds who watches and judges and doles out rewards and punishment, we’re really not being religious. We’re being superstitious. To come up with a working definition of the word “God” might just require some work on our part.
Or maybe not.
The Gospel lesson for Hoy Trinity (John 3:1-17) is that familiar story of Nicodemus coming to Jesus by night. He starts by buttering him up, and that kind of makes you wonder what this Pharisee is after. Since Nick admits that Jesus must’ve come from God, we can pretty much bet he’s got some theological questions on his mind. But Jesus doesn’t even let him make those queries before he starts messing with the old dude. Jesus starts talking about being born from above, and being born of water and the Spirit. This gets Nicodemus thoroughly confused, which might’ve been Jesus’ point after all. We don’t even understand earthly things, so how can we comprehend the mystery of God? Simple explanations aren’t going to cut the mustard when it comes to the Almighty.
In 325 CE the early church bishops met in Nicaea and gave us a definition of God which makes no sense at all. God is Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. God is immensely vast and powerful while being truly human and frail and weak while being ethereal and incorporeal and transcendent and immanent. God is all of these things at once and yet none of these things alone. I wonder if those ancient bishops, tasked with coming up with the definitive definition of God, finally just threw their hands up and said, “We don’t freakin’ know, but this is the best explanation we can give.”
What is crucial, I think—and what the mystery of God pushes us kicking and screaming towrds—is the contemplation of God’s majesty. I really dig the images in the First Lesson for Holy Trinity, Year B (Isaiah6:1-8). The prophet sees himself before the throne of God. God is SO darn big that the very hem of his robe fills the whole temple—and the temple of Jerusalem was probably the biggest building Isaiah ever saw. There are seraphs flying around covering their faces and their private parts[i] so they don’t profane by even looking at God. The place is shaking like it’s been hit by a quake that’s at least a 7.0 on the Richter scale, and the incense (and the temple was always filled with incense which symbolized ascending prayer) is so intense that the poor guy can’t even see in front of him. All of this makes him feel like a bug about to be squashed. He knows he’s in deep doo-doo before this magnificent and all-powerful God.
But what does God do? He has one of the seraphs take a burning coal from the altar and touch the prophet’s lips (Which would scare the crap out of me, by the way!). Instead of giving Isaiah a third degree burn and ruining any chances he’d have of making money at a kissing booth, the hot coal burns away all profanation from the prophet, and makes him worthy to speak God’s word.
We may not understand much about God, but what we know is that God’s will for us is full of mercy.
There’s a story about Albert Schweitzer and a reporter which I really hope is true. After Schweitzer spent years as a medical missionary in Africa, a young writer asked the famous physician and humanitarian what he’d learned. Schweitzer is said to have replied: “I know only two things: First, there is a God. Second, I’m not him.”[ii] Contemplation of the mystery of the Holy Trinity should make us feel small and inadequate. That’s a good thing. Humility takes the pressure off of us. Still, how wonderful to contemplate that this colossal God loves us enough to die for and with us. IF we understand nothing else about God, let’s be sure we understand that.
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