GOD LOVES AND FORGIVES
Exodus 34:4b-6, 8-9; Daniel 3:52-56; John 3:16-18
Thomas Edison was working on his crazy contraption: the “light bulb”. It took his team twenty-four hours to put together each bulb. Once, after the team finished crafting a bulb, Edison gave it to a boy to carry up to the storeroom. The youngster took each step with extreme and watchful caution. At the top of the stairs, he dropped the priceless piece of work. When the team finished the second bulb, after twenty-four hours of work, and it had to be carried upstairs to the storeroom, Edison gave it to the same boy!
Why would Edison forgive someone who destroyed his handiwork? It’s bizarre. It defies understanding.
So does the reality that our God always forgives us though we constantly and repeatedly destroy his handiwork.
The readings on Trinity Sunday are not incomprehensible theology explaining the doctrine of the Trinity. They highlight something more incomprehensible and yet deeply consoling and hope-filled: God’s forgiving love! His love is not a sentimental love but a non-condemning and forgiving love.
The first reading describes the incident after the debacle of the golden calf. God is willing to renew the covenant with Israel despite its incessant infidelity. Why? He tells Moses that he is “a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity.” This succinct poetic description of God is an oft-repeated statement of Israel’s belief and describes God’s relationship with his people, one which is portrayed right through the Old Testament.
The gospel is a summary and the core of the Good News! Jesus tells Nicodemus that God sent his Son not to condemn the world but because he loved the world. Through his entire life and ministry, Jesus lived out this core of the Good News – he sought out the sinner and the outcast.
Grappling with the mystery of the Trinity – three persons, one God – is tough. It’s tougher to live out the mystery of the Trinity: to love as God loves, to forgive as God forgives. And yet this is what God calls us to do.
In the second reading, Paul gives us a program to imitate our Trinitarian God: “Encourage one another, agree with one another, live in peace.”
Do I forgive and love like God does? Whom will I forgive and love in the week ahead? How will I encourage and live in peace?
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