2024 Trinity Sunday (B)
I recently watched a film on Netflix called ‘A Triangle of Sadness’. It was, as the title suggests, sad. There were three people vying for each other’s’ love. But it was a selfish love; in fact, it wasn’t love at all. In the end it all ended tragically. True love isn’t sad, on the contrary; it brings life and joy to a person’s life, and so much more. Love is wonderful, it is life giving, it inspires and encourages us to feel good about ourselves and about others.
Today we are celebrating a feast which has love at its heart. It is the feast of Trinity Sunday, not a triangle of sadness, but a triangle of love. How do we know this, because this is what Christ, the son of God, taught us. He didn’t tell the disciples to baptize in the name of God. No, he said, baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. I used these same words last week when I baptised a baby. Every time someone is baptised these words are pronounced. Most of us were babies when we were baptised, but if we could have understood we would have heard the same words Christ taught his disciples: “I baptise you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
Why does this matter? Couldn’t God be just one? Couldn’t the priest say, “I baptise you in the name of God”? Wouldn’t that be enough. But no, it is not enough. Jesus, the Son of God, came to tell us what God was like. He wanted us to know that God is love; He is a triangle or trinity of love; the Father loves the Son and both love the Spirit. It is perfect love. They have everything, as you do when you have love; you don’t want anything more. Love is more than enough.
But there is more. God wanted us to be caught up in this loving relationship. When we were baptised, it wasn’t just the sprinkling of water that made the baptism, it was the words as well pronounced over the baby: “I baptise you in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” St Paul clearly understood the implications of these words. Listen to him again, as he told the Christians in Rome: “the spirit you received is not the spirit of slaves bringing fear into your lives again; it is the spirit of children, and it makes us cry out, ’Abba, Father!” In the text Paul uses an exclamation mark, to underline this extraordinary truth. At our baptism we have become, as St Paul puts it, “heirs of God and coheirs with Christ.” So, we too are caught up in the love between the Father and the Son.
It is definitely a “wow moment”. Doesn’t Jesus say that elsewhere: “as the Father has loved me so I have loved you”? To know that you are loved is wonderful; it makes life worth living, it puts a smile on your face, it makes you want to love others. The film that I saw, ‘The Triangle of Sadness’ is all too familiar; it showed the worst in human nature. But love, the love of the Trinity, does the opposite, it brings out the best in us. What a great gift is given to us when we were baptised. What God, the Trinity, wants you to do, is not keep that love to yourself, but share it with others. Break into the Triangle of Sadness in our world and make if a Triangle of Love.
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