Now let’s remember we started with “The (amazing) grace of the Master, Jesus Christ;” leading us into “the (extravagant) love of God (the Father),” and now we’re ending up with “the (intimate) friendship (fellowship)” of the Holy Spirit.”
We Trinitarians believe in one God who is Son, Father, and Holy Spirit, but we do have a problem defining just what that means. You could empty the sea with a single seashell before you could explain the Trinity in a way that is both Biblical and accurate, and also easily understood by the average person.
A joke about a man sitting in a roadside diner watching two men working their way down the median of the highway offers a Trinity interpretation. The first man was digging holes, and the second man was filling them up.
When the man drove past them, he stopped and waited for them so he could ask what they were doing? One man explained they were planting trees in the median.
“I dig the holes, John puts a small tree in the holes, and he (the second man) fills in the holes. But John’s sick today!”
Three men in perfect agreement about what had to be done, each one doing his part of what had to be done, and without all three, nothing gets done properly.
It’s a poor analogy for the Trinity describing the three distinct persons but falling short of the one God. But I do think it’s a great analogy for “the intimate fellowship of the Holy Spirit” in our church found in 2 Corinthians 13: 14.
Fifty-three years ago, wife Mary Ella and I drove into Wilmore, Ky. to attend Asbury Theological Seminary. I was sitting in the office of Financial Aid Director Mrs. Crouse waiting for her to complete a phone conversation.
She hung up the phone, frowned, shook her head, and said, “I just can’t believe some folks. That was a student who’s coming here without any money, no job, and no place to live, but that’s his problem. What can I do for you?”
“Well, I've been accepted to the seminary and here we are — with no money, no job, and no place to live.”
She laughed, welcomed us to Wilmore, and helped us find a place to live.
I've heard that home is where they’ll take you in when no one else will, and that’s what happened with the Christian community in Wilmore.
People came from all over town to help us, first find a place to live, then a job wiring a three-story house, and finally a new life for the next three years. It was our new community’s practical expression of “the intimate fellowship of the Holy Spirit!”
Charles “Buddy” Whatley is a retired United Methodist pastor serving Dawson Street Methodist Church in Thomasville, Ga. With wife, Mary Ella, they are missionaries to the Navajo Reservation.
