We had a big power failure at college yesterday. I was in the right place at the wrong time, and ended up discovering where most of the electricity distribution panels are as we tried to work out what was going on, whilst our Facilities Manager, Trevor, was in the wrong place, stuck in a traffic jam on the wrong side of town, dictating instructions by phone!
In the end the fault was too big to be fixed simply by resetting switches and breakers - a huge mains fuse had blown, and taken out one 'phase' of electricity, which means that approximately a third of the college had no power. Whilst I was trained in this sort of stuff the last time I was at college I struggled to explain to a load of theological book-heads why seemingly random buildings were in darkness. It was only much later that I realised that explaining it in terms of the Trinity would be much easier. So here goes. Let me know if this makes sense!
Christians believe that God has three distinct 'personalities' - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They co-exist a bit like water does (as ice, liquid and steam). All three are inseparable, and although sometimes one may seem to be acting a bit more than the others, they generally work in balance. Electricity is delivered a bit like that too.....here's the science bit
When electricity is generated on a large scale at the power station, in a wind turbine etc, the generator always makes three 'phases' of electricity during each rotation of the machine (there's a whole load of maths behind this, but you really don't want to know - it's simply the best way to do it). Like the vanes of a 3 blade wind turbine these phases are spaced 120 degrees apart, and are called red, blue and yellow. In a modern street typically the first and fourth house is wired to red, the second and fifth to blue, the third and sixth to yellow, and so on, so in a power cut you may find that your neighbour still has power while you don't. Big buildings or complexes will use all three phases, with different bits wired to red, blue and yellow in order to balance the load across the phases - if the load isn't balanced it starts causing real problems when everybody switches their kettles on after EastEnders. Now for us, overnight our electrician temporarily re-wired some parts of the college to ensure heat and light to as many people as possible, but this wouldn't be safe for too long. Still with me? Good. Now for the Jesus bit.
If we place too much emphasis on any one part of God's trinity we are in danger of becoming unsafe ourselves. If we rely on God the Father too much, if we do not demonstrate the love of Jesus or fail to acknowledge the role that the Holy Spirit has to play, we are not presenting a balanced view of God. When we place too much load on one or two where we should lean equally on three we will eventually fail. Some churches overemphasise aspects of one of the Trinity and the people there receive an incomplete picture of God.
The three parts of God never go away. Just like the electricity at Ridley, when the electrician installs the new main switch all three phases red, blue and yellow are waiting to flow back into those wires. The utility company continues to pump electricity down the cables towards us, but our fault in the blue phase means we can't connect to it until we fix that fault. The fault is on our side, not the Provider's.
In the end the fault was too big to be fixed simply by resetting switches and breakers - a huge mains fuse had blown, and taken out one 'phase' of electricity, which means that approximately a third of the college had no power. Whilst I was trained in this sort of stuff the last time I was at college I struggled to explain to a load of theological book-heads why seemingly random buildings were in darkness. It was only much later that I realised that explaining it in terms of the Trinity would be much easier. So here goes. Let me know if this makes sense!
Christians believe that God has three distinct 'personalities' - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They co-exist a bit like water does (as ice, liquid and steam). All three are inseparable, and although sometimes one may seem to be acting a bit more than the others, they generally work in balance. Electricity is delivered a bit like that too.....here's the science bit
When electricity is generated on a large scale at the power station, in a wind turbine etc, the generator always makes three 'phases' of electricity during each rotation of the machine (there's a whole load of maths behind this, but you really don't want to know - it's simply the best way to do it). Like the vanes of a 3 blade wind turbine these phases are spaced 120 degrees apart, and are called red, blue and yellow. In a modern street typically the first and fourth house is wired to red, the second and fifth to blue, the third and sixth to yellow, and so on, so in a power cut you may find that your neighbour still has power while you don't. Big buildings or complexes will use all three phases, with different bits wired to red, blue and yellow in order to balance the load across the phases - if the load isn't balanced it starts causing real problems when everybody switches their kettles on after EastEnders. Now for us, overnight our electrician temporarily re-wired some parts of the college to ensure heat and light to as many people as possible, but this wouldn't be safe for too long. Still with me? Good. Now for the Jesus bit.
If we place too much emphasis on any one part of God's trinity we are in danger of becoming unsafe ourselves. If we rely on God the Father too much, if we do not demonstrate the love of Jesus or fail to acknowledge the role that the Holy Spirit has to play, we are not presenting a balanced view of God. When we place too much load on one or two where we should lean equally on three we will eventually fail. Some churches overemphasise aspects of one of the Trinity and the people there receive an incomplete picture of God.
The three parts of God never go away. Just like the electricity at Ridley, when the electrician installs the new main switch all three phases red, blue and yellow are waiting to flow back into those wires. The utility company continues to pump electricity down the cables towards us, but our fault in the blue phase means we can't connect to it until we fix that fault. The fault is on our side, not the Provider's.
1 comment:
Happy Daze - as an ex-Ridlean, love reading the blog.
Enjoy - passes far too quickly,
Vic
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