Trinity
Sunday
A kindergarten teacher was observing her
classroom of children while they drew. She would occasionally walk around to
see each child's artwork. As she got to one little girl who was working
diligently, she asked what the drawing was.
The girl replied, "I'm drawing
God."
The teacher paused and said, "but no
one knows what God looks like."
Without missing a beat, or looking up from her
drawing the girl replied, "They will in a minute."
Today is Trinity Sunday. Today we
are invited to reflect on the Holy Trinity and the work of the Triune God. The doctrine of the Trinity
is foundational. In fact, in the Augsburg Confession , the first book in the Book of Concord, which contain the Lutheran Confessions, the Trinity is described in first very first article, where it is written “ In the
first place, it is with one accord taught and held, following the decree of the
Council of Nicea, that there is one divine essence which is named God and truly
is God. But there are three persons in the same one essence, equally powerful,
equally eternal: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. All
three are one divine essence, eternal, undivided, unending, of immeasurable
power, wisdom, and goodness, the creator and preserver of all visible and
invisible things.” While this statement appears in the Lutheran Confession, the
doctrine of the Trinity is held by all Christian denominations which stand in
the catholic and apostolic
tradition—From Roman Catholic, to Baptist, to Presbyterian, to Pentecostal to
Reformed, to Anglican, to Eastern Orthodox.
In
fact when the Lutheran reformers
first issued the Augsburg Confession back over five hundred years ago, this
first article was held faultless by their Roman Catholic opponents—it was one
of three doctrinal positions the Catholic opponents had to agree with. The others were the doctrine
of original sin and the doctrine of Christ as true God and true man. While the
term trinity or Triune God nowhere appears in scripture, scripture testifies to
the reality of God’s three
persons. In Matthew, Jesus himself commands his disciples to baptize in the
name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit, and Christians have for over two thousand years confessed
belief in the one true God who is of three persons. When we say together the
Nicene Creed or the Apostles Creed as we do every week, we confess belief in
God’s three persons.
While
the doctrine of the trinity—God as Father Son and Holy Spirit—seems simple at first, the more we think about
it, the more difficult it becomes. One difficulty concerns the equality of the members. A common
understanding of the relationship between Father Son, and Holy Spirit is
hierarchical. God the Father is kind of pictured as the chairman of the board
with Jesus as the CEO or president of the company, and the Holy Spirit, as kind
of the courier, or lesser executive, who works for the Father and the Son.
It’s
natural to think that way, easy to think that way—but its actual heretical, meaning its wrong. All three members of the Trinity are
equally God, equally powerful, equally eternal.
Another natural misunderstanding
concerns the distinctiveness of the members. It’s easy to think of the three
members as three distinct powerful Gods who form a triad. But the doctrine of
the Trinity tells us that the three persons are of one essence, one God. The three persons are
not a triad. It is just as natural to swing to the other extreme and think of God as one essence who appears
in the three distinct forms, or masks, of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But this
,too is heresy. The formal name for it is modalism. It is indeed tough to get our minds around the idea that God
is one and three at the same time.
“
Okay, explain how it works”, might be a kind of natural request at this point.
Well,
if you are expecting a definitive answer today, here from this pulpit, I am
sorry to disappoint you. Winston Churchill once described Russia as a riddle
wrapped in a mystery in an enigma. The reality of the Holy Trinity is
infinitely more enigmatic than Soviet Russia, so I don’t feel bad about not being to explain it.
I don’t believe there is a theologian in
the world who can explain the inner workings of the Holy trinity, unwrap its
mystery and give an answer that will ultimately satisfy the hungry intellect. If there is I certainly would like to
meet his person. I am sorry to say
that the request for a definitive explanation will go unmet—at least during
this message. Augustine couldn’t do it so I’m not going to try.
But
maybe we need to approach the subject of the Holy Trinity from a different
angle.
Maybe
we need to start with a different question. And maybe that question is: “ Who
are we humans?”
Scripture
has an answer to that question. Humans are beings made in God’s image, made in
God’s image but fallen. Human beings were made in paradise but-- by their own
choice,--exiled from it. Having lived in perfect unity with their creator,
those made in God’s image live in a state of alienation from their creator, so
the image in which they were made has become distorted. The biblical narrative describes
the plight of human beings as they contend with living in this distorted image.
Part of that distortion involves aspiring to be divine, to be God, to make gods
out of the things of this world. But in the depth of the human heart there is a
longing—a longing for relationship, for communion, with the source which
created it. In the depth of every human heart there is longing for union with its
source. and the story of sinful humanity is the story of trying to fill that
inner void with things which are not god, worshipping false images.
But also in the human hear there is knowledge that this
creator is all powerful, all mighty, exercises the power of life but also, and
terrifyingly so--the power of death. In first century Jerusalem, God lived in
the temple, in the holiest of holiest. It was on the holy day of atonement, and
only on that day, when the high priest entered to make sacrifice. But during
any other time it was understood that to enter the tent would mean instant
death. This is the God of judgment, perfectly righteous, perfectly Holy. This
is the God which made Martin Luther quake in his boots. 31 The
writer of Hebrews tells us in chapter 10; 31 that “ It is a fearful thing to
fall into the hands of the living God.”
How could human beings—sinful, fallible, and alienated--ever be in relationship with
that kind of God, with the Living God?
In today’s Gospel lesson we hear about
Nicodemus, the Pharisee. He belonged to a sect which viewed Jesus and his
followers as dangerous lawbreakers. He belonged to a sect which plotted to have
Jesus crucified. But this Pharisee, Nicodemus, was curious about Jesus. He has seen what Jesus has done and has
to admit that Jesus is a teacher who has come from God, a teacher who has done
remarkable signs. Nicodemus
was so curious that he came by night so as not to be seen by the others and, as
we read, he has some questions for
Jesus. But he needs to know more—needs to know exactly who Jesus is. And Jesus
gives him an answer. Jesus tells him exactly who he is. Jesus tells Nicodemus
exactly who he is by describing what he does, what he came into the world to
do—which is to save all humanity from the power of sin and death. Jesus came into the world to be your
Saviour—yes, your Saviour. This is the
heart of Christianity. This is the heart of the Christian proclamation—it
is that Jesus came into the world to bring as back into the heart of God, to
cleanse us, and restore that broken primal relationship between Creator and
created.
Only
through the work of a mediator could the one who trembles in despair ever be in
relationship with a perfectly Holy
and righteous God. And the only one fit to do that mediating work is someone who can claim equality with God.
God, in the person of Jesus, is the mediator, the one who removed humanity’s
burden, and reconciled the broken relationship.
But
how do we come to learn about this great saving work of God through Jesus? The
Holy Spirit reveals Jesus as the one who brings us back and restores and draws
us into his heavenly Father’s unfolding plan for creation. The Trinity, you see
doesn’t describe God as a noun so
much as a verb. The Trinity describes
what God does, God creates, restores, and sustains, and
God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
has done this in and through history. But any discussion of the Trinity
should never become a dry abstract intellectual exercise. It is about you, it
is about me, it is about the world. It is about being drawn into God’s
unfolding redemptive plan for you
and all creation.
In today’s Gospel lesson we read the
often quoted John 3:16. If there was one verse in the Bible, only one we could
read, this would be the one. “ For God so loved the world that he gave his only
Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal
life.” Everything we need to know
about the Holy Trinity is contained in that verse. The truth is contained in
that verse because a relational reality is described—what the Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit have done for you—how they have created faith and in so doing
communicated salvation. That is the
most important relationship we could ever know about And that is the key aspect of the Trinity we
should understand, that it is a relational reality which involves us. It’s
personal. When we are reborn in the image of Christ, and made Holy, we are brought into this dynamic moving
relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The
Holy Trinity is a doctrine which does not describe a distant, disinterested God
who is out there somewhere who we
sing hymns to con Sunday. This God is where we are, where all people are, and
this God has a message for the world, which we Christians are called to
proclaim in spoken word and visible action. We Christians are called to testify
to the love of this God shown through Jesus, and we do that by being like
Jesus. We are called to be in mission for this God. We need to pray about that
mission, we need to listen to the spirit speaking to us, guiding us, directing
us. We are going to engage in that kind of discernment today as we hear our
special guests speak about the supportive housing facility on the corner of 16th
and Dunbar. How can we use the gift and talents God has given us to reflect the
love of Jesus to the residents, and show them that they, too, are loved by God,
that they too are important, that their lives also matter. So let us open our
hearts and minds to follow the lead of the Triune God, who has done such
wonderful things. Amen.
