“After this I saw, and behold, a door was
opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were
of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither . . .”
(Rev. 4.1): and so St John the Divine ascends to the divine life,
and catches a glimpse of heaven, a vision of eternal life. What he
sees is the splendour and beauty of God himself, in his heavenly
glory, a splendour to which the powers of our human description are
hardly adequate. Not inappropriately, then the Apocalypse speaks in
the language of poetry and imagination—to arouse our affections and
to kindle our love: hence the likeness of precious stones; a
rainbow; lightnings and thunderings; elders clothed in white with
crowns of gold; lamps of fire; the sea of glass like crystal;
6-winged angelic beasts—and the focal point, the centre of it all:
he who sits upon the throne is worshiped.
So would we join “with angels and archangels, and
with all the company of heaven, [to] laud and magnify” his glorious
name (BCP, p. 81). For the One who sits upon the throne is
he whom the Seraphim invoke as thrice holy: “and they rest not
day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which
was and is and is to come” (Rev. 4:8).
We begin Trinity Season here, because here is
where we hope to end. This adoration and contemplation of God as he
is, is the ultimate purpose of our human existence, it is the
perfection of the Christian life, it is that for which we have been
created. This is a glimpse of the fatherland, the lasting peace, and
Sabbath rest of our souls in the true knowledge of and union with
God; it is the end of all our strivings, the fulfillment of our
search for truth, and satisfaction of all our desire which can alone
bring us real happiness. Such worship of the Triune God is in fact
the goal of all creation.
On this feast of Trinity Sunday, we celebrate the
Holy Trinity which God is: for through the Son, who was lifted up
for us that we should not perish, the Father adopts as his own
children those who are born again by the Spirit. This divine
Trinity has revealed himself as for us and with us. The rebirth
which takes place in our baptism is the beginning of our life in the
Trinity, a renewal and regeneration which is effective for the
remission of all sins.
“Verily, verily I say unto thee, Except a man
be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). To
see the kingdom of God, to see God as he is, requires that we be
born again—and this rebirth is by the grace of God, the Holy Ghost.
But why should we need to be ‘born again,’ and what does this mean?
Recall what accompanied the prophet Isaiah’s vision of the glory of
God: “Then said I, Woe is me! For I am undone; because I am a man
of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean
lips” (Isaiah 6:5). For in the “dazzling light” of God’s
transcendent majesty, Isaiah cannot help but humble himself, and
recognize his own darkness of soul, weakness, iniquity and
wretchedness. According to the Wisdom of Solomon, “perverse
thoughts separate man from God, and when his power is tested, it
exposes the foolish; because wisdom will not enter a deceitful soul,
or dwell in a body enslaved to sin. For a holy and disciplined
spirit will flee from deceit, and will leave foolish thoughts
behind, and will be ashamed at the approach of unrighteousness”
(Wisdom 1:3-5). Through being baptized into Christ’s death, we have
been reborn into his resurrection; we have been forgiven of all our
sins, so that not a single spot of guilt remains. Why then do we
continue to confess “our manifold sins and wickedness” (BCP,
p. 77), except that our justified souls still have sinful habits?
For the single moment of regeneration in baptism is not the same as
the process of renewal whereby we grow in godliness and holiness of
life. To see God face to face, we must become like him. Thus the
Prayer Book exhorts, “and so should we, who are baptized, die from
sin, and rise again unto righteousness, continually
mortifying all evil desires, and daily increasing in all
virtue and godliness of living” (BCP, p. 530).
As St Augustine illustrates: “as it is one thing
to be free from fever, and another to grow strong again from the
infirmity which the fever produced . . . so the first cure is to
remove the cause of infirmity, and this is wrought by the forgiving
of all sins; but the second cure is to heal the infirmity itself,
and this takes place gradually by making progress in the renewal of
that image [in which we have been created]” (On the Trinity
14.17.23).
This is precisely what Trinity Season is about:
our journey of sanctification, in order that we may become like God
and ascend to see him face to face. “Verily, verily I say unto
thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Our deformity must be reformed and renewed into deiformity. Such is
the regeneration of our minds and hearts and bodies: from attachment
to earthly things to heavenly things; from the lusts and passions of
the flesh to love of the spirit; from the habits of vices to the
habits of virtues; from that which is mortal and temporal, to
eternal life. This means the conversion and purification of our
souls, the conversion and purification of our intellect and our will
or love. For how can we reflect the Creator’s glory if his image in
us has been tarnished by our sin? How often do we, like Nicodemus,
perceive with carnal eyes, and fail to acquire spiritual vision? In
what ways are we distracted from contemplation of God? In what
manner does our love become entangled with worldly pleasures and
pursuits? Where do we mistakenly seek our happiness elsewhere than
in the joy of participating in the Trinitarian life of mutual love?
. . . Therefore, since we are not yet perfect in this life, because
we still have to make progress in virtue, in the course of this
Trinity season, we shall together, with God’s help, undertake to
examine ourselves, to listen to where the Spirit bloweth, that we
may be born of the Spirit.
As we read from St Paul’s Epistles to the
Corinthians: “Now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face
to face” (I Cor 13:12). And again: “But we with open face,
beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the
same image, from glory to glory, even as by the spirit of the Lord”
(II Cor 3:18). Our hope is that we should ascend to the Father,
through the merits of the Son, who was crucified and raised on our
behalf, by the power of the Spirit who changes us into the likeness
of God; that the glory of our faith in the Trinitarian mystery may
be translated into the glory of sight; and that we may be evermore
united to our true love. Amen.
