On Triune Presence from Eastertide to Pentecost and After | A Pastoral Perspective

On Trinity Sunday, the theme of worship observes a particular aspect of Christianity (regarded as among monotheistic religious traditions) which espouses the notion of a triune God—that is an attribution to the divine of such holy characterization as “Three-in-One”—a manifest “Tri-Unity” that is integral in the very essence of the Lord our God’s being Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Trinitarian language itself can be indescribable between believers themselves having difficulty in conveying their own understanding of the theological concept as stated and affirmed in Christian creeds, confessions, and statements of faith.  From tutelage in childhood and youth through catechesis, confirmation, and re-affirmation of faith into adult maturity, followers of Jesus the Christ may find wisdom in varying measure(s) at times elusive.  The pastor-theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer provides pertinent exposition regarding challenges on this subject matter. 

THE HIDDEN WISDOM OF GOD

God’s thoughts are not obvious, not common sense. God does not let himself be simply grasped right where we want to grasp him. Rather, the church speaks of the secret, hidden wisdom of God. God lives in mystery. His being is a mystery to us, a secret from eternity and to eternity. None of the thoughts that we have about God can ever serve to do away with this mystery or to turn God into something generally comprehensible and not mysterious. Rather, all thinking about God must serve to make visible his mystery, which is totally beyond us, to make God’s secret, hidden wisdom visible in its secretiveness and obscurity—not to rob it of this, so that perhaps through this mystery, the homeland from which God comes will become visible. Every dogma of the church is only a reference to the mystery of God. But the world is blind to this mystery. It wants a god that it can take into account and exploit, or it wants no god at all. The mystery of God remains hidden from it. The world doesn’t want it. It makes gods for itself according to its wishes, but the near, mysterious, hidden God it does not know.[1]

By God’s grace unto the glory of the Lord, may we experience further blessings of the triune presence as we journey from this holy season of Easter into the Sundays after Pentecost.  In the Wisdom and Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

Pastor Rex Espiritu

[1] But we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden …” (1 Cor. 2:7–10).

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. I Want to Live These Days with You: A Year of Daily Devotions (p. 148). Kindle Edition.