It seems like a small thing in light of the disaster and heartache in Oklahoma, but Beth and I once lived in a place where the lights went out whenever the wind blew hard. And eventually, if the power was off long enough, the water stopped running. We were out in the country and our water came from a well. The pump ran off an internal tank of compressed air and without power for the compressor the pressure dropped until no water flowed.
I tell that story about our rural water system to draw an analogy to the relationship between faith, hope and love. One might see faith as the power source, the electricity; hope as the pump and water pipes; and love as the water itself. You can see the electricity and plumbing as means to what is most important, the water necessary to survive. Faith and hope are wonderful gifts, vital virtues, but ultimately their purpose is to bring us into connection with God’s love and enable us to love each other.
You see that relationship between the three Christian virtues spelled out in our text for this Sunday, Romans 5:1-5. Verse 1 talks about our justification, our forgiveness for sin and redirection to righteousness, by faith. Verse 2 says that as we’ve gained access to grace, we boast in our hope. Verses 3 and 4 give a little account of the development of the virtue of hope, through suffering, endurance and the growth of character.
However, verse 5 takes us to the point of it all, saying that “hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit…” So just as electricity and plumbing in our well system culminate in water pouring from the faucet into a drinking glass, faith and hope culminate in love being poured into us from its source in God.
This is also Trinity Sunday and at the same time our text displays the triad of faith, hope and love, it shows us the Trinity at work by the grace of Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The same three-person work of God is displayed in the Gospel reading from John 16:12-15, with the Jesus the Son promising the coming of the Holy Spirit, who will take what Jesus has received from the Father and in turn teach it to us. Reading the larger context which includes John 15:10-12, we can be sure that a large measure of what comes from the Father, through the grace of Jesus, and by the gift of the Spirit, is love.
We often repeat I John 4:8, “God is love.” That can be true only because there is genuine interpersonal love within God’s own being. God is love because God is from eternity Father, Son and Holy Spirit, loving each other. It’s that divine, eternal love which is poured into us when we come into relationship with God through faith and hope.
May God pour even more of that gracious drink of love into our hearts.