This is far from an original thought, but it seems to me as if God has created little reminders of Himself everywhere. Echoes, analogies. Jesus didn't use just words as parables in the Bible. He also used ACTIONS and EVENTS. That tells us that God is a God of symbolism. So that's what I was musing over this morning, driving to work during the absolutely breathtaking sunrise over Portage Lake. Thinking about symbolism, God's creation, and the Trinity.
The idea of the Trinity is hard to grasp... what does "3 persons in one Godhead" mean? I've heard the analogy of an egg... shell, egg-white, and yolk. I think a far more apt example is the human being... body, mind, and soul. Three in one to make a complete human. And we are, after all, made in His image, which is also three in one. Looking out over the lake, I was also pondering water as a perfect metaphor for the Trinity. An undeniable metaphor. One oxygen, two hydrogen makes a single water molecule. Again, 3 in 1. The Creator as the oxygen, with the Son and the Holy spirit as the Hydrogen. If you look at a picture of a water molecule, you find that it is bent, like a tent, with Oxygen at the top, and the Hydrogens pointing always towards the Oxygen. Everything that Jesus and The Advocate do points the way to our Father. I was pondering that the Trinity might also not be a "what" so much as a "how" and a "who" of God... the three states of God, just like water has three states of matter. When God came in human form as Jesus, he was solid - just as water becomes solid as ice. Ice is individual and concrete, we can feel it, touch it, see it, it has defineable dimensions and distinct edges, yet it is still water, still divine. God as Holy Spirit is as water in liquid form. The Bible describes the spirit as "pouring forth", and "filling us up". The edges become indistinct as water flows. God the Father and Creator is as water in gaseous form. He is everwhere, permeates everything - limitless, unable to be defined. Yet all are water - an oxygen and two hydrogen.
There is no life without water. There is no life without God. The human body is over 75% water. It infuses all parts of our anatomy, just as our bodies are infused as vessels for God. All plants, all animals - all life is dependent in some matter upon this one substance. We may survive for a good while without food, but not without water. Water washes us clean when we are dirty. Water takes our weight, our burdens, and makes them light. Water reflects back to us who we are, what we see. The water of the ocean is immense, powerful, awe- and fear-inspiring. There is good reason that God requires a baptism of water in order to claim us for His own. I've often wondered why Jesus saw the need to be baptized in water, when he was already so obviously the prime member of God's family - unless, of course, he wanted to be an example for us, which he most certainly did. But I always felt there was something more than that. I was reading St. Ignatius recently, and he explained that it wasn't so much that Jesus was being baptized BY the water, but that Jesus was making the water holy for us - transforming that water into the means by which our baptism might be complete through Him. In essence, Jesus was baptizing the water! That rings entirely true.
From the microscopic level of the molecule to the macroscopic level of the ocean, we can see the Holy Trinity in water. Our God is a God of details and vast expanses. And undeniably a God of symbolism and metaphors.
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