It’s Love, in Point of Fact (October 15, 2012)

…Opening To…

You know what the first rule of flyin’ is? …Love. You can learn all the math in the ‘Verse, but you take a boat in the air that you don’t love, she’ll shake you off just as sure as a turn in the worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down, tells ya she’s hurtin’ ‘fore she keens. Makes her a home. (Malcolm Reynolds, Serenity)

…Listening In…

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. (2 Corinthians 13:13; context)

…Filling Up…

At the beginning of my favorite movie, the science-fiction film Serenity, the Operative scans through security footage of Simon Tam breaking his sister, River, out of a government-run facility that has been conducting torturous experiments on River’s brain. The doctor who runs the facility tells the Operative that it was “madness” for Simon Tam to give up his own brilliant future in medicine in order to save his sister. “Madness?” the Operative replies. “Have you looked at this scan carefully, Doctor? At [Simon Tam’s] face? It’s love, in point of fact. Something a good deal more dangerous.” It’s love, in point of fact.

It’s love, in point of fact, that forms our faith communities, which care for those both within and without our little bands of pilgrims. Some would say this is madness rather than love, asserting that maintaining a purely self-interested motivation for action is the only safe and sane way to live.

It’s love, in point of fact, that brings our faith communities together to worship a God we’ve never seen with our eyes nor heard with our ears nor touched with our fingers. Some would say this is madness rather than love, asserting that only what we can prove and quantify and predict are real.

And it’s love, in point of fact, that forms our faith communities to worship an unseen God who reveals God’s personhood as threefold, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Some would say this is madness rather than love, asserting that the Trinity is a needless complication of the already tenuous and rather dodgy business about God.

Some would say all this is madness, but it’s love, in point of fact. This week we are going to look at the love of God as revealed in the Holy Trinity. I know that using the word “Trinity” can be a little daunting, but I hope you’ll stick with me, because it doesn’t have to be.