The Advocate and the Trinity

Homily for Trinity Sunday
May 30, 2010

Proverbs 8: 1-4, 22-31

Today is Trinity Sunday. Last Sunday, Pentecost, Christians were re-introduced to the Holy Spirit as an Advocate--our personal intercessor and intermediary with God. In the Old Testament, the prophets wrote about the spirit as a "still, small voice" within us. In today's beautiful lesson from Proverbs, the Spirit is presented with a feminine voice and is called Wisdom. She says she was with God from the beginning, working at his side, and God took delight in her. Wisdom tells us she stands by the gates of our hearts, calling to us.

As Christ took his leave from the disciples, he reinforced the importance of the Holy Spirit. He tells them that they need not worry about losing him because he will always abide with them in the Spirit. Just as He lives in God and God lives in Him, so the Holy Spirit will live in each faithful believer, connecting us directly to the Son and the Father. This spirit is Love and desires only what is best for us. Jesus calls the Spirit our Advocate. You may also call her Wisdom.

Last Sunday we celebrated the descending of the Spirit on the disciples. As the Spirit entered them, they truly became instruments of God, calling out to all people around them in their own languages and offering hope of salvation and eternal life. Filled with the Spirit, the disciples sought to break down the barriers of human fear. Like Wisdom standing at the gates, they opened our hearts to the fullness of God's love. In so doing, they laid the foundation for the Church.

God is a great mystery, and the Trinity is for most of us a difficult concept to grasp, but it is the fundamental principle of the Christian faith. Our creeds, the statements of our belief, outline the Trinity. We say we believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Last Sunday, the Holy Spirit got a big send-off. Today we are reminded that the Spirit is one part of the Trinity, and all three parts are essential.

Endeavoring to explain the Trinity, a child said that it was like his mother and the various roles she fills. She was mother to him, wife to his father, daughter to her own parents. This is an appealing explanation, but I think our expression "God in three persons" somewhat misses the mark. Although our experience of God is personal, God cannot be contained by the limitations of what we think of as personhood. True, God took on human form and came to live among us as a simple carpenter's son. We believe God did that to demonstrate his love for us, his saving compassion. But remember, Christ's last important work was to leave the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, in his place. You could argue that was the most important thing he accomplished.

Without the Spirit living within us, we would not be moved to love or believe in God. Lacking the Spirit, we would not be moved to accept the grace and salvation God offers us. Thanks to the Advocate, we receive the blessings of God the Creator and the prophetic understanding of God the Son. It is only through the Spirit and the work of that Spirit within our souls that we are transformed into Children of God.