Believe it or not, in order to understand why cute guys make girls so happy and why girls make guys smile, we need to begin by looking at our God.
Now I know that’s the sort of thing religious types are supposed to say- especially when speaking to someone younger. I’m sure you saw it coming. We do tend to goof this kind of thing up-remembering what we’re supposed to say while forgetting why it needs to be said. We end up making the “ought to” and the “ought not to” stuff all dull and boring.
But there’s always reasons for God’s instructions and they’re never boring or dull. “Doing the right thing” is really about being truly and fully human; and human persons are the glorious, fiery, and wildly alive reflections of our dangerous God. Nothing boring there. If we sigh when we hear the word “godly,” it’s because we were never told that “godly” really means “godlike.”
Now, everyone wants to be like a god. Everyone desires to be glorious and powerful. Everyone. I know this is true, because I know that is the way our God made us. We were made in his image and…he is true power and glory. God put the desire to be godlike in the hearts of every man woman and child who has every lived. But the question is “what is god like?” People kill, scheme, hurt and steal in an attempt to satisfy that desire. Young girls starve themselves and older women pay to have their bodies cut on all in an attempt to receive power or glory. Others of a more religious inclination… starve themselves and beat their bodies, kill, scheme, hurt and steal for the same reason: godliness. Most of what passes for godliness is about as godlike as paper masks are lifelike. They’re just not very, and deserve both a sigh and a roll of the eyes- maybe even our dread and horror. But that’s because we’ve been swindled. It’s because we are confused by what we mean when we say both “god” and “human.” So give me another chance and hear me out. Let’s take a look at our God.
It’s the obvious place to start. After all, he is the source of all that is, and we live life fully when we live it in a way that agrees with how he made it. Surely, he knows how things work. But more than that, everything was made to work so that it reflects his glory. To understand God is to understand the creation that bears his image. So, we need to know how creation was meant to work, and we can come to know that by understanding what our God is like.
The most awesome thing about the true and living God is that he is love. Most people mean by this that God loves. Of course that’s true; but it’s not what St. John says. Love isn’t simply something God does. St. John says that Love is what God is[i]. What could this mean?
Well, if it’s true (and we know that it is), then God must be more than one person. If you’ll think about it, you’ll see why this is so. In order to love, there must be another. If God were a single individual like you and me, then for all eternity he sat alone- like a hermit in a cave. There was no one to love, no one to care for and communicate with. Do you see what this means? Love, Relationship, and Communion wouldn’t be part of what and who God is. Love, Relationship, and Communion would be extra things added to what is most real. Like popcorn at the movies, they would be nice… but in the end disposable and unnecessary.
It’s hard to see how a being that doesn’t relate, love or communicate could be personal at all. Wouldn’t that being be more of an “it” than a he or she. More like the ocean tide -a powerful force, maybe, than a person?
That can’t be right. There must have always been another whom God loved, related to and communicated with. But in that case there must have been many gods. That can’t be right either, because then none of those gods would be the final god at all. We can’t make God personal by making him less than God.
What to do? The answer is precisely what Scripture has given us through the Church. We call this distinctly Christian understanding of who God is the ‘Holy Trinity’. God is one in being but three in person.
Now, this is where it gets really cool. You might remember how we declare during Sunday Worship[ii] that we believe the Son is eternally begotten of the Father and the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son. Sounds complicated and it certainly is marvelously so. But the important thing to notice is that there is movement and gift within God. What is given? God gives himself.
God the Father pours everything he is into the Son- the Son is eternally begotten of the Father. The Son responds by pouring everything he is back to the Father. And likewise the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from both the Father and the Son. Each of the persons of the Trinity is the Giving and Receiving of the others. This self giving is how God exists. The Son is the Father’s gift, the Spirit is the Father and Son’s Gifting. The Father is the fountain Giver. If the Father’s giving stopped, there would be no Son, but if there was no Son then there would be no Father, because a Father requires a child whom he has begotten. The same is true of the Spirit. In fact, the Spirit is the bond of love between the Father and the Son. Our God exists as perfect and eternal self-giving. Our God is Love.
The church has a fancy word for this eternal gifting. We’ve named it Perichoresis. You might hear words like Perimeter and Choreography when you say it. They come from the two Greek words that make up the word Perichoresis. Those roots join together to mean something like “Circle Dance.” Imagine a wedding party where everyone has linked arms to joyfully dance around a blazing fire. This movement of celebration is how the early Christians imagined our God of Love. But the unity wasn’t simply a matter of Father, Son and Holy Spirit working together (like the happy dancers avoiding each others toes and moving in the same direction), rather the circling was the very heart of how Father, Son and Holy Spirit exist. Each member of the Godhead gives himself totally to the other and then receives the other back in a great Circle Dance of being.
Because of this giving and receiving, each of the Three are said to be totally in each other. You can see Jesus talking about this in John14 and 17. Someone has suggested that we draw a circle and label it Father. Everything the Father is will be found inside of that circle.[iii] But if we look closely we will see that everything inside of that circle is labeled Son, and everything inside the Son circle is labeled Spirit. If we began with a circle and labeled it Son, we would find Father and Spirit written inside of it. And so, also the Spirit. It’s sort of like an endless image of mirror within mirror. Except instead of going deeper and deeper, it goes around and around: One God eternally existing as three persons.
In Himself this gifting is pure joy, communion and fellowship. We would say that it is ecstatic- a word which means to “stand outside of oneself.” We use ecstasy to describe events that are so intensely joyful that we seem to leave our surroundings. We forget or don’t care where we are... or who’s watching. These experiences are very rare. Great pain produces a similar experience. Unfortunately, most people know how this feels. We smash our finger and forget who’s listening, saying something in front of a parent, parishioner or child that we’d normally not say. Ecstasy is like that, only in a good way. Of course we don’t really live outside ourselves. We only feel as if we do. But with God the ekstasis is literally true. He exists by eternally going out of himself. He lives by giving himself to another. His existence is pure light, pure gift given and received, pure ecstasy. It’s no wonder that we refer to our God as the Blessed Trinity.
If this is just how our God is, if he can’t help but give himself away, then what must happen if we see him involved in a world of guilt and misery? Would this self-giving takes a different form? Might it look like a King kneeling to wash the feet of foolish and proud fishermen? Might it weep in a garden and lay total power down for the good of the other, even to the point of horrific death? This type of thing was nothing new for our God. It simply took a different form when he actually entered the world of the suffering men and women he loved so much. He has spent eternity pouring Himself out as gift to another. This is who He is. Our God is Love; and this love consists in a total self-giving and receiving to and from another.
To see what this has to do with the special tingle we feel when our hand brushes against you- know-who’s hand, we need to take a quick look at the other half of reality. We’ve mentioned the Creator. Now let’s look at his Creation.
[i] I John 4:8
[ii] When we recite the Nicene Creed
[iii] The one thing that must not be included in this claim is what theologians have referred to as the personal properties of each member of the Trinity: the Father alone is Unbegotten, the Son alone is Begotten of the Father and the Spirit alone proceeds from Father and the Son.
PART 1/ PART 2/ PART 3/ PART 4/ PART 5/ PART 6/ PART 7/ PART 8/ PART 9/ PART 10
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