The first person of the Trinity: the Father

We see him cleansing the temple of money changers. By this he opposes the debasing of religion to the transactional.

We see him healing the sick and raising the dead thus showing himself to be the cure of souls and bringing life out of death.

We see him steadfastly treading the road to Jerusalem and his doom, giving his life for his friends and drinking the bitter cup. He shows us by his actions that faithfulness may be kept even in the face of death. In doing so he paves the ways for the martyrs of the Church whose witness cascades down the ages.

In the Sermon on the Mount we see him overturning the hierarchy of human judgment to set us free.

We see him risen and bringing light to his disciples and to us who live under the shadow of death and nihilism.

All these things can be summed up in the word "Love".

"Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love."1John 4:8.

The way of the follower of Christ is a way that transforms us into His image. This is not a process that is completely in our control because it is a work of the Spirit. It is not as though we could decide to be like Jesus. This would rob us of our freedom and identity because our striving would be an attempt to become something we are not. Rather, the instruments of this transformation are worship, prayer and membership of the Christian community.

Contrary to popular thought, this is not a limitation of freedom but the promise of a freedom more radical than those outside of the Church can conceive. As the writer of 1 John 3:2 says:

Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.

In other words, the invitation to discipleship is not an invitation to become cookie cutter Christians but to a future that is yet open to us. In terms of Trinitarian language, the image of the Son is still evolving in the Spirit and what we will become is still open, except that our transformation will be such that we will also do the deeds that Christ did.

This is no manifesto for conservatism but a fostering of eager longing to see God coming to us from the future.

Speculation about whether God exists or not and whether we believe in his existence does not address us. We will always be safely in control. However, when we ponder the image of God in the history and literature of Israel and in the Christ, we are set back on our heels. We are confronted by a love, not in the abstract, but in the flesh and blood of a real human being and we know that nothing will now be the same. This is the experience of God that is the desire of nations and the healing of all things.