John 16:12–15In one of his stories from Lake Wobegon, G. Keillor tells of the priest at Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility Parish, who, in a move that he realizes was clearly a mistake, forms a worship committee. The committee installs bright lights in the sanctuary.
I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
In a comical scene, he disables the lights the night before Easter.
Keillor says that the priest doesn’t like the bright lights, they remove mystery. He says the priest “always thought the Lutherans wanted to do away with mystery altogether.”
hmmmmmmm
I collect quotes. Mostly one or two lines. . . don’t want to go beyond my attention span. . .
Here’s a few
To try to deny the Trinity endangers your salvation, to try to comprehend the Trinity endangers your sanity." Martin LutherI wonder if we make the mistake of addressing the Trinity as a problem to be solved, rather than a mystery with which we are called to live. A truth given to us to inspire wonder.
I realize that the only time the church is really sufferable is when it is at prayer. When it talks, it claims too much for itself. Reinhold Niebuhr
I suspect that Niebuhr is spot on about most of our explanations of the Trinity. I could probably simply say - about most of our explanations.
In a marvelous sermon - “So Explain It To Me” - colleague Mary W. Anderson (anybody know her? I like her stuff) says:
Yet how important is it to explain the mystery of God revealed to us in three distinct ways? Mysteries explained cease to be mysteries, don't they? Perhaps the doctrine of the Trinity challenges our secret wish to know God fully and eliminate all mystery. This, after all, was the burning desire of our first parents in the Garden, a desire that ultimately caused them to fall from grace. Does this temptation to dispel all mystery still burn within us?I haven’t even touched on Trinity as relationship, etc. etc.
One last quote:
God tends to confound, astonish and flabbergast. A Bethlehem stable, a Roman cross, an empty garden tomb. We might as well reconcile ourselves to the fact that God's truth often turns up in ways we don't expect. - Sue Monk Kidd
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