“Pinning God down?”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Sunday, June 12, 2022
Proverbs 8:1-4,22-31 (Forward, p. 45) CEV p. 653
It is difficult to try to ‘pin God down.’ Now, we should know this fully well, especially on this date in the church year, Trinity Sunday, when pastors and others have repeatedly tried to do just that. Today’s reading from the Hebrew Scriptures just add another piece to the already interesting and confusing puzzle, as it throws in the concept of holy Wisdom. Here, in this passage, it speaks of Wisdom as being a person, a supernatural being who was with God at the creation of the world. Some would speculate that Wisdom is yet another name for God, but then our passage does speak of God giving life to Wisdom and of Wisdom being born (verses 23-25). That then, would rule out any sense of deity, seeing as God is most surely uncreated and existing before time. Nevertheless, in this passage Wisdom says of herself that ‘from the beginning, I was with the Lord’ (verse 22). And elsewhere that Wisdom was there when God created the world and all the universe. So then, where does Wisdom fit into the picture?
To me, this is yet another of those incomprehensible notions that have to do with God. Wisdom is a fitting name for God, of course, and surely her activities accord with the work and identity of the pre-incarnate Christ. The stumbling block is the notion that she is created, that at some point she did not exist but later did, neither of which fit in with what we believe about Jesus. So, for now, I am content just to ‘let it ride’, to let it be yet another thing that I haven’t quite ‘figured out’. But then, much of what I know of God has to be of that character. God, almost by definition, has to be far above what I can know or understand, otherwise He would not be God. He would be no greater than my own intelligence or understanding, which would not be God at all. So, for now, I am simply content to trust, to trust what little that I do know and just let all the rest simply ‘be.’ Amen.
Forward notes: ”When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth— when he had not yet made earth and fields, or the world’s first bits of soil” (verses 24-26).
“I love the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, but I have long since given up trying to understand it beyond knowing it as a sign that the incarnate Jesus can be trusted. For instance, if we understand Jesus to be fully divine and fully human, what are we to make of the agony in the garden when he says, ‘Not what I want, but what you want.’ Who is the “you” in his prayer?
“One answer could be that it was an act, that Jesus merely pretends to pray for the benefit of his observing disciples. But a saviour who pretends is scarcely worthy of our trust. The doctrine of the Trinity asserts that when Jesus prays, the prayers are genuine—that the incarnate Son, fully divine and fully human, brings the fear and anxiety and suffering of his humanity to the feet of God the Father. A saviour who does that for us is the one who has dwelt with the Father and the Holy Spirit since before time and forever and is worthy of our thanks and praise.”
MOVING FORWARD: “Offer your thanks and praise today in prayer and deed.”