This Sunday is Trinity Sunday and our Church asks us to stop and think for a while about the mystery of who our God is. Because it is a mystery, we cannot solve it, but by thinking closely about who God is, we draw closer to the mystery and deeper into the love of God.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”
These words of Jesus tell us so much, do they not? These words speak of the Plan of God to bring all the world into the full life of God. We could think of it like this:
In the beginning, or before the very beginning, when God has a plan and time begins. God loves, and there bursts forth a spark of light containing all the energy that ever was or will be. From that spark of light, born out of Love, explodes all creation.
God loves, and mother stars, supernovas, galaxies, and planets whirl outwards into infinity.
God loves, and our planet cools as it spins with the other eight (including poor Pluto!) around our beautiful sun.
God loves, and the rains fall and the oceans fill.
God loves, and life exists, microscopic and exquisite, growing and becoming more complex as each eon passes.
God pours out more and more Love, until one day, finally, when all is just right, humans stand up on two legs and begin to think and imagine and create along with God.
The Love of God pouring into creation might be like pouring sugar into water. As we stir, the sugar dissolves almost before we can even see it.
We look at the water, we can touch the water and feel it, but we cannot see the sugar. God loves the world, God loves creation. We can see and touch creation, but we cannot see God's Love.
Until...
If we keep stirring sugar into water we get to a point when there is so much sugar, the water can no longer dissolve it. We say the water is saturated. No matter how much we stir, the sugar can be seen.
While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son... (Luke 2:6b-7a)
God loves the world so much that it becomes saturated with God's Love. Jesus is born into creation—the love of God in physical form. Visible. Audible. Touchable.
Loveable.
For a time—about 33 years, we think—the Love of God dwells among us. He grows and lives, teaches and heals.
And then things really begin to heat up.
On the night before he dies, he takes bread and wine, blesses them, and gives them to his friends, saying, "This is my body; This is my blood." He pours out his Love into that bread and wine so that they become his body and life. He gives his life, and then he pours out his Love once more, and dies on the cross.
What happens to sugar if we heat up saturated water? The sugar dissolves. Even though the water is already full of sugar, it takes up more. We say that the water becomes super-saturated. The sugar is raised up and can no longer be seen.
On the third day, God raises Jesus from the dead. Full of the life and Love of God, he can never die again. Creation is super-saturated with the Love of God.
If we let that super-saturated water cool, the sugar remains dissolved. The water holds more sugar than it could before.
Until...
If we add even one more grain of sugar into that water, all that excess sugar crystallizes out of solution. The sugar, once more, can be seen.
For forty days, in moments of God's intense Love, Jesus appears to the apostles. God's Love crystallizes. But then on the day of the Ascension, Jesus returns to God. The water is heated up again, the sugar goes back into solution; the Love of God can no longer be seen.
But the sugar is still there, even though it cannot be seen—more sugar than there ever was before. The water is thick with it. There is more of God's Love in our world than there has even been before because so many years ago Jesus lives and dies and rises to new life. Because Jesus is Risen, the Love of God surrounds us. The world is thick with it.
God pours in the Love; the Love crystallizes into Jesus; Jesus rises to new life and the Love surrounds us. Jesus tells the apostles he will send the Spirit to be with them always, to surround them always. Could the Love of God be the Spirit of God?
Even now, in moments of intense Love, does Jesus crystallize out of solution again? Are there times when the Love of God becomes visible to us?
Jesus says,
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”
There is a goal for this plan, is there not? For everyone who believes to have eternal life, when all the world is drawn up into that Love of God. Maybe, at that point, the water becomes dissolved in the sugar. What would we call that solution? Maybe at that point it would be more correct not to speak of the sugar and water separately, for they will have become one. One delicious syrup! The syrup of God.
