John 3:1-17

Sunday of Holy Trinity | May 26, 2024 | John 3:1-17 | Dave Brooks |

In a volume of essays from about a decade ago, author and theologian Peter Leithart explored how the created world contains within it what he titled “traces of the Trinity,” meaning that the created order contains within it echoes, hints, marks — faint thought we might believe them to be — that reflect the reality and truth of the Trinity.

As he methodically works his way through the various “traces” he identifies, Leithart points out that understanding the true nature of these echoes and hints depends upon two things: the first is recognizing that none of us really exist in isolation, but rather that we exist because of relationship. We want to drill down, break things apart, be able to say of every single thing “this; not-this” but, in the end, our very existence is predicated on relationship. Human beings do not exist prior to or apart from relationships, for even in the first moments of life for each of us, we come into being as a union, a result of relationship. As we grow toward birth, our very existence is defined, made real by the relationship, the union that we have with our mothers, and others can only destroy that growing life by denying that relationship, by declaring it is “not-me,” or “not-human,” or in some other fashion breaking the relationships that the child in-utero possesses.

The second point is recognizing that, even if we acknowledge that there is a relationship, it is not a relationship that starts with us, or is defined by us. We might understand this point by looking at a common metaphor for God. Four times in Psalm 18, David says “God is my Rock! Praise to my Rock!” Now, we are tempted to examine such a metaphor from a human frame, and ask “how is God like a rock?” But it is more faithful, and more accurate, to begin not with our earthly framing and project up to heaven, but rather to ask “how is a rock like God?” In what way does a rock participate in the truth or reality of God? We make a similar mistake when we take the images we have of earthly father and project them onto God: “how is God like this particular human father I have in mind?” It is more faithful — and more accurate! — to assess “how does this particular father reflect the truth or reality of God?” “In what way does this father participate in the truth or reality of God?”

Jesus emphasizes both points in his conversation with Nicodemus. He begins by emphasizing that relationship must be established, or rather, reestablished: you must be born again, you must be remade in a relationship of dependence and mutual definition: once we were no-ones, but now we are God’s own, once we were in bondage, but now we are in freedom, once we were in death, but now we are alive.  This is not something that we can do or achieve or claim — it is only and always a gift; it only comes to us because God desires it.

In the same way, Jesus points out that the wind is the way that it is (and yes, we certainly know about its blowing hither and yon) because the Mighty Wind, the Sacred Breath, The Ruach of God goes where it will! It is not the Spirit that is like a capricious draft or breeze; it is that breezes blow because they have within them an echo of the Holy Spirit that blows where it will!

Do not forget, the trace of the Trinity is upon you. Partially, that is because you and I also participate in the things of creation, and all things that are made bear on them the fingerprints of their Maker. But far more important is the tracing upon your brow of the cross from your Baptism, that mark made upon you. Whether it was long ago, or just last week — it is there. You may think that it is faint, so faint, that finger trace. But it is not gone. That tracing says everything about you: that you have been brought into relationship with the Father who loves you so, that you are under the protection of the Son who is Lord of all things, that you are filled with the Holy Spirit who is the Breath of life. And because of this Love, and because of this Lord, and because of this Breath, you have eternal life. Amen.

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Pr. Dave Brooks

Raleigh, NC USA

Pr.Dave.Brooks@zoho.com