The Only Really Interesting Personality in Existence
Fr. John Riccardo
June 16, 2021
My own personal experience and as a priest is that the biggest struggle for almost everyone I know is identity. Who am I? In our youth, often, we spend much time and effort trying to create an identity for ourselves, hoping to fit in, to be received by others, to matter, to be loved. This is understandable, as we are created with a deep desire to be loved and to love. Life without love is brutal. But identity is received, not created. We are because Someone loves us. We exist because Someone willed us into being. And that Someone did so with a purpose, a glorious purpose in mind, one beyond anything we could ever imagine or dare to dream of.
N.T. Wright has commented that stories work by inviting “listeners into a new world, and encourage them to make that world their own, and to see their ordinary world from now on through this lens, within that grid.” There is no story as thrilling, adventurous, meaningful, and hopeful as the story that Scripture reveals to us. Because this is so, and because there is such widespread confusion—not just in the culture at large but in the Church—we are continuously telling the story, preaching the biblical worldview in our mission at ACTS XXIX. It’s the reason we recently published a wonderful little book called The Cosmic Christian Narrative: The Deep History of the World. This book is perfect not only for our own personal reading, but makes for a great small group study with friends in our homes over the summer. We printed an excerpt from it last week and will continue to offer some excerpts in the weeks ahead. Enjoy!
“Christianity is the most thrilling story ever seriously believed by large numbers of people over long periods of time. We may run into someone who says: ‘I see what Christians think, hope, and believe; I feel the power of the Christian narrative; I understand its attraction; I can see why so many people through the ages have risked everything for it and based the whole of their lives on it. But I haven’t embraced it because I haven’t found my way to believing that the story the Christians tell is true.’ In such a case, we know we are dealing with a sensible, if mistaken, person holding a reasonable position. But if we meet someone who says, ‘The problem with Christianity is that it is colorless, boring, humdrum, and conventional; I’m looking for something more interesting, more elevating, more inspiring, something richer and more gripping,’ then we know that we’re dealing with someone who is ignorant of Christianity and who has never heard its account of reality. Sadly, many Christians are themselves in this ignorant state. So, an important task for all Christians is to understand the Christian story: to see the broad lines of the great drama into which we have been born, and in which we have been assigned a momentous part to play.
“Our story begins, as all true stories must begin, with that mighty and mysterious being beyond all imagining and above all that is, the source and center of existence: God. God, the infinite in being; God, the essence of goodness; God, the fountain of life; God, the all-powerful and all-knowing; God, the wellspring of truth; God, the ‘alpha and omega,’ the beginning and the end of all meaning; God, the beautiful, the aching if often unnamed desire of every human heart…
“God has revealed his name as ‘The One Who Is’ (cf. Exod. 3:14). God is the one Being who can be said simply to exist. Anything else that might exist exists at a different and lower plane, and exists only by participating in the existence of the One who Is. God exists outside of time and place. He is not the greatest of the various things that exist, as one among many lesser beings. He is not the most powerful ‘thing’ in the universe. He is not a ‘thing’ at all. He is beyond all that he has created; he is utterly distinct from all that he has brought into being, and yet at the same time he is the very ground of its existence. He transcends any possible category or description we may have of him. He Is.
“This incomprehensible being has revealed himself as both one, unchangeable, simple in perfection, unable to be divided, and three— Father, Son, and Spirit—each personal and yet beyond our experience of what it means to be personal.
“Among the many titles of God, the one that perhaps touches his inner being most closely is the one that tells us that God is love. By this is meant that in the very structure of his being God instantiates all that is meant by love. The Father utters himself, pours himself out, empties himself entirely by an act of self-gift, begetting from all eternity the Son, speaking from all eternity his Word, the Logos. The Son, with an equal act of loving self-gift, empties himself completely in giving place to and returning the whole of himself to the Father. The perfection of their offering of self, one to the other, brings forth from all eternity the Spirit, who then pours himself out completely and perfectly on behalf of Father and Son. Trinity in Unity: love in perfect action, a fountain of life and mutual gift springing up at the center of all that is, a dance of harmonious music enjoying in timeless perfection the essence of goodness, life, love, beauty, and truth. God: the only really interesting personality in existence.
“For reasons that are ultimately beyond our comprehension, but that have to do with his loving desire to share his life and his goodness, God determined to create, to bring into existence realities other than himself. When God performed his creative act, the Father brought forth all of creation through the Son, his ‘Word.’ Everything that existed came into being through and for the Son. God first brought about the invisible, spiritual world, and then he created the visible, material world. The spiritual realm of his creation was to be higher, richer, vaster, and more beautiful than the material realm. But the material world was to have a beauty and a purpose of its own in expressing the infinite creativity of the Divine mind. This decision on God’s part to create marks the beginning of our drama, the adventure of the human race.”