Dorothy Sayers, the British intellectual and theologian and – not incidentally – writer of mystery novels, once remarked that for the average churchgoer of her day, the mystery of the Trinity meant "The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, the whole thing incomprehensible; something put in by theologians to make it more difficult – nothing to do with daily life or ethics."

Well, in fact the mystery of the Trinity has everything to do with daily life and ethics, though it is also, it must be said, "incomprehensible." Which is why in the Church we are accustomed, as we have been this morning, to talking about this revelation as a "mystery."

But, in this theological sense, when we talk about a mystery, we're not talking about a sort of intellectual puzzle....No, in the Church, when we talk about a mystery, and especially when we talk about this Mystery of Mysteries, the ultimate mystery which is the Most Holy Trinity, we are using the word in almost the opposite way. Instead of a logical puzzle, a question, we are talking about a truth, a revealed truth, which we may know to be true even though it is impossible to wrap our little heads all the way round it.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • Preaching / Homiletics • * South Carolina • * Theology • The Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit

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