Jesus in yet another farewell speech is commending the Advocate of truth to us.  He says our Advocate will prove the world wrong about sin, righteousness and judgment.  The promise is that our Advocate will take what belongs to Jesus and declare it to us.

The coming of the Advocate is the completion of God’s love triangle.  We were created in God’s image to participate in the Holy love triangle of the Trinity because freedom can only come through love.  The world in which we live is contrary to the will of the Father for us.  It is based on reflecting each other’s defective love rather than living out the image of God in our lives.  The kingdom of God is based on imaging the love of God.  The Trinity is not a logic puzzle or a mystery; it is about relationships, personal relationships, relationships which are defined by The Divine Love.  John sums up God in one word when he writes; “God is Love.”  We know about that love through the special relationship that Jesus had with his Father, a relationship that Jesus extends to us through the Advocate.

It is far more useful to look at the Trinity as a relationship than as a doctrine.  The Trinity is most clearly seen as the cross of Christ made alive in the resurrection which saves us from useless living and frees us to live out Jesus’ everlasting life.  We must always see what we call God in the light of the cross and resurrection. 

All through the scripture we are allowed to listen in to the relationship between the Father and the Son.  As the true human Jesus demonstrates a proper relationship with his Father and we are then invited to participate.  We are connected to their relationship by the gift of the advocate who leads us forward in our lives to; following Jesus’ example; live truly human lives.

The Trinity is about personal, holy relationships of love.  God’s project in Jesus is to help our love relationships go right.  God is Love, God helps us to love.  The trinity is God’s Holy love triangle calling us to know and be part of God’s love.  When our lives are open to and centered in Father, Son and Spirit we learn how to love too.  The Trinity is the right place to look for love.

Loving Trinity style is the story of God and people in our Bible.  It is laid out there, especially in the love story between the Father and his Son, a story we enter through sharing their spirit.

We read together from our Bible every week so that we learn to look for love in the right places.  The disciples will need God’s spirit of truth to see how the cross is the Glory of God.  For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.

The spirit of truth draws us into God’s holy love triangle so that we can actually share in the same love that God has for us and for the world.  Jesus said:” this is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”  Jesus love is so powerful that it can draw us into itself, where we can begin to love each other as God in Jesus loved us. 

The biggest difference between our unholy love triangles and God’s Holy Love Triangle is that our triangles cause and increase suffering and God’s love triangle relieves and rescues us from suffering.  Our human love triangles cause and increase sufferings because on our own we cannot love with one heart and one will and one desire as Jesus loved with the Father.  We may try our best, but we will fail and on our own we will degenerate into conflicts, heartache and suffering.  Without the forgiveness of God in Jesus through the Spirit we cannot bear our terrible guilt.  Inevitably we look for someone else that we can blame for all our problems and we unify ourselves by hating them.  Much as Jesus was cast out of his community and hung on a cross.

But with Jesus we have the Holy Love triangle that enters our world with the power of infinite forgiveness to offer us life in the loving heart of God.  When we love with God, in the love of the Holy Triangle, it begins to heal all our unholy human love triangles.

Jesus is still speaking to us through our advocate and he has many things to say.  The advocate is constantly working with us to enable us to love and to live in the truth along with Father and Son in their spirit which is for us.

The Trinity is not a logical puzzle or a mystery, but a holy relationship of love in which we can live and love eternally.

1.                 Love is a big word.  How about defining holy love as respect or is that too limiting?

2.                 How does it change our understanding of God to see him as a relationship instead of a being that “is” someplace?

3.                 How can we love each other following Jesus’ model of love?