Ordinary Time
by Amy Peeler
An immensely helpful volume in this series, one of my favorite writers, Rev. Dr. Amy Peeler takes the mundane out of the ordinary showing the importance and veritable vitality of this season. Ordinary Time: The Season of Growth is filled with extraordinary insights. As I write on Ash Wednesday going into Lent, I’m actually quite anxious to move on to this time of growth! I’ll surely revisit this to re-discover its depths and discern the subtle ways God increases my growth in Christlikeness.
Meanwhile, I will offer two highlights that inspired me.
The first Sunday of Ordinary Time is also Trinity Sunday. This is an opportunity for believers to see afresh the Triune God as Father, Son, Spirit. Peeler describes a theological truth around the Trinity that I have never thought about, but one that is clearly present. While celebrating the Eucharistic portion of Trinity Sunday, we proclaim that Christ died, and we also we proclaim Christ overcame death and the grave. His death, we believe, achieved our redemption, and the cost was incalculable. This much we affirm. But, in the midst of his grueling experience on that cross and at the moment of his death, God the Father and God the Spirit also suffered. Peeler writes,
He [Christ] went through the full gamut of the human experience, the moment of death as well as the process of burial, both of which are deeply painful for the loved ones of the person who has died. God willingly experienced these realities on behalf of humanity in the person of the Son. That means that God the Father and God the Spirit experienced the Son’s submission to these forces. We are at the edge of the capacity of human language here, but though we are unable to explain it fully, we can say that God, the God of life allowed himself to experience death. (p 52, emphasis original)
What struck me here is that the Father and the Spirit both witnessed the immense pain of seeing the Son submit to a suffering, painful death. In ways we can only imagine, all members of the Trinity were present in the Son’s crucifixion. They were not simply passive witnesses to that darkness, but entered into it; similar to the way a parent might be present to their dying child (think Mary, the mother of Jesus, at Golgatha). This is not to say that the Father or Spirit suffered death (this is the error of Patripassianism). It is to say, however, that all persons of the Trinity, though distinct, experienced suffering as the one God-Man Jesus literally went through death. Most importantly, it is to say that our Triune God—Father, Son, Spirit—understands human suffering and pain, up to and including death. All three Persons of the Triune God are not so ‘other’ that they cannot also enter into our humanity. God is not a spectator but an active participate in my suffering. That is a holy comfort indeed!
Subsequent chapters emphasize growth in trust and gratitude by an engaging and insightful retelling of the stories of Abraham and Sarah, Hagar and Ishmael, and Isaac’s well-nigh sacrifice. Through these biblical narratives, Peeler creatively and pastorally invites us to believe that God’s testing is a means of grace intended to build trust. It is often the case that when we are most desperate we most see God's presence and action (pp 109, 116). “Just like Hagar with the well, the answer was there, but the eyes of the person being tested had to trust God first before they could see the provision” (p 123; see esp. Gen 21:19; 22:13). Perhaps this is what is meant to live by faith ('trust') and not by sight (2 Cor 5:7). Trust first, then results. When this sequence is observed, then gratitude comes from a place that cherishes God above what we hope to receive from him.
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