Thursday, May 28, 2020
![trinity-sunday[1]](https://thenoontimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/trinity-sunday1.jpg?w=283&h=213)
Time Unknown
The message that God’s time is God’s time and that God alone is enough is important for us to experience. And it is here in this letter that Paul helps us to better understand God who heals and abides, God of Time Unknown. A good study Bible with commentary and footnotes will be an effective tool for us to use.
The reference in verse 5 to children of the light, which is who we are, refers to those who are called out of darkness to be light to the world, to be God’s expression of love to the world just as Christ is God’s light and message of love to the world. Each of us is called to perfect intimate union of light and goodness with God . . . so that we might go forth to tell others this good news.
Commentary and footnotes also make a connection for us with Romans 5:1-10 in which Paul urges us to recognize our indestructible personal union in Christ’s own life. This sense of our union with God’s timelessness makes our mission to the world all the easier once we realize that as Christ’s disciples we must operate from God’s love rather than our fears. (Senior 236)
Toward the end of Thessalonians chapter 5, there is a beautiful exhortation to form community in Christ Jesus. Paul is telling us that the suffering we undergo allows us to unite with Christ. From the essay on page 324: “The superabundant love for which Paul has just prayed [3: 12-13] is to be shown practically by living out the norms of conduct that he has communicated to them. Specific ‘imperatives’ of Christian life, principles for acting morally, stem from the ‘indicative’ of one’s relationship to God through Christ by the sending of the holy Spirit. Thus, moral conduct is the practical, personal expression of one’s Christian faith, love and hope.” [my underlining]
In the life of the Spirit there is always the opportunity to make a new beginning. There is always the hope for the impossible. There is always the call to love most the ones who harm us. This is the Way of Christ. It is justice tempered with compassion, righteous action moderated with mercy; it is not leniency which forgives and forgets, but rather it is an active, humble and infinite love which transforms. And we are called to behave in this manner in this life, otherwise how will we have the skill to behave this way in the next?
Paul is telling us that the way we live each day, the way we interact with others in this world, the way we express our faith in God, our hope that Jesus returns, our love in the Spirit . . . all of this is also our expression of our relationship with the timeless Triune God.
As we fuss and worry about our little timelines, our past and our future, Paul gives us the image of the Trinity with its timeless, infinite goodness. And Paul tells us that we are one with this indestructible timelessness.
This is something worth thinking about . . . and acting on.
Tomorrow, waiting in God’s time . . .
Image from: http://www.trinitycranford.org/?page_id=8106
Senior, Donald, ed. THE CATHOLIC STUDY BIBLE. New York, Oxford University Press, 1990.324-328. Print.
Adapted from a reflection written on July 23, 2007.
The Noontimes 