Lockdown and the Trinity

There are many things that can be said about the Trinity, but there is one that I feel very aware of at the moment:
the issue of community.

During the lockdown, that we’ve lived through these past few months,
we’ve all suffered from a LACK of human CONTACT.
Some of us, totally alone.
Some of us, see people at work, but not our normal SOCIAL circles, and not our normal FAMILY circles.
I’ve experienced that, and I know through many phone calls with you, you’ve all experienced that too.

In point I want to make is twofold:
First, this experience of the LACK of human contact,
has shown us just how DEEPLY human contact is NECESSARY to us.
We, as humans, are built for community, made for love.
As it says in the Creation account, It was not good for man to be alone 9gen 2:18).
There are hermits, alone in caves;
there are celibates, consecrated in the single life, like myself
-but these are exceptions to the norm,
and they exist as a sacrifice, to serve the wider community.
Man is made for community, made for human contact.

My second, point, this Trinity Sunday, is that this shows us something about the nature of God Himself.
The Bible tells us that man is made in “the image of God”(Gen 1:27).

So, let’s think of the Triune God:
He is not alone.
He exists always as three persons:
As our Faith teaches us about Jesus Christ, the one eternal Word, the eternal Son of the Father,
"there was never a time when He [the Son] was not".
And likewise with the Holy Spirit.
And these three persons exist in an ETERNAL RELATIONSHIP of love.
Such that God can never be ALONE in Himself, never be lonely.
Each of those persons is ALWAYS in relationship and HAS ALWAYS BEEN in relationship.

WE are made in that image.
Our lockdown experience of needing human contact, is, in reality, just a TASTE of how deeply the Triune image is imbedded in our nature.

And, maybe, this can be a lasting gift of the lockdown to us:
Our society, for decades, has been increasingly individualistic,
increasing thinking of people as if the community didn’t matter
-the OTHER didn’t matter.
The lockdown has taught us the opposite, in a rather brutal lesson.
Our nation has, during this, witnessed an incredible community spirit:
people getting groceries for neighbours they didn’t even know the names of before;
people willing to accept lockdown restrictions for the sake of the COMMON good.

When the lockdown lifts, the risk is that we go back to before.
Let us, as Christians, resolve that that won’t be true of us.
And, specifically, let’s accept this as a little glimpse of the image of God, the image of the Trinity within us.