The Trinity For Us

May 31, 2105

Holy Trinity Sunday

John 3:1-17

I think Holy Trinity Sunday is the only

church day that celebrates a doctrine.

And that doctrine is the doctrine of the Trinity,

that God is one and is also three,

Father, and Holy, Spirit.

Many a pastor and teacher has spent this Sunday morning

trying to explain this mystery using apples, or ice and water,

but I’ve found any explanation kind of leaves us scratching our heads.

And some of you who have been going to church a long time

may remember reciting the Athanasius Creed

it’s one of the three creeds that we adhere to in the

Lutheran church, but we don’t say it as much as the other two.

If you don’t know it, it’s kind of long and repetitive

and doesn’t really skip of the tongue like the others.

The people who made the new hymnal didn’t even

put it in there this time, which was probably a good choice.

The one time I remember reciting it

at my home church, and it was so long and confusing

that we all messed up and the pastor

had to stop us and start us together,

“all together from

‘And yet there are not three eternal beings…”

The Athanasius creed and the other creeds we use

are from the third and fourth century.

The Athanasius creed explains how

God and Jesus and the Spirit are one,

but they are distinct and each part

always was and always will be.

This was a time in the church when having the right

understanding about the nature of God and Jesus

was very important to Christians,

it basically decided your faith.

And the Athanasius creed does start with the lines:

“Whoever desires to be saved

should above all hold to the catholic faith.

Anyone who does not keep

it whole and unbroken will doubtless perish eternally.”

Which is why I won’t ever have us read this in our worship.

Thankfully we’ve moved to another place today.

Where adhering to whole and unbroken doctrine,

is not as important as trust in God

and questioning and understanding.

But all in all, I’m glad that this doctrine of the Trinity

has been handed to us, and was defended so strongly

and is part of our faith,

because it tells us something very important

about the nature of God and who God is for us.

First we have God the creator, the

all powerful and vast director of everything.

In the first reading today, we heard

Isaiah’s description of God.

God so enormous and unimaginable,

that the hem of God’s robe fills the whole temple.

God is beyond our seeing and our understanding.

The almighty creator of the universe

Who controls the seas and the mountains,

who set the planets and stars in motion.

Wholly other and beyond us.

And then we have God who is Jesus, a real person

who could hold a conversation with Nicodemus

a living, breathing, suffering person.

Who stood up to authority and cared for the weak.

Who felt the  loneliness, sadness, joy, and sweetness of life.

who knew the desperation and brutality of this world

and also the wonders it held.

God, a real person who you could touch

and smell, and hear.

He is one in the same as God the Father,

if you want to know the mind and heart of God the creator

then just pay attention to God the redeemer in Jesus.

And we have God the Spirit who

is so close to us, she seems to be a part of us.

Jesus says “we are born of the Spirit and we are Spirit.”

Paul tells us that the Spirit gives us the words to pray.

We know and are a part of

God the Spirit that challenges us and comforts us

that lives in us and moves through us.

That the Sprit groans in us, and makes us long for home.

And the Holy Spirit is God too.

God: creator, incarnate, and breath of life.

The doctrine of the trinity tells us that we have a God

who is all powerful, who is human, and who is part of us.

All together at the same time.

A God who is vast and unknowable,

and yet can touch us and move in us.

St. Augustine, another third century

church father, described the Trinity like this:

“Now, love is of someone who loves,

and something is loved with love.

So then there are three:

the lover, the beloved, and the love.”

And as Jesus tells Nicodemus,

this three is brought to us by the power of love.

God so loved the world that God

uses every way to reach us and be with us.

God, in God’s self, is a relationship.

A table for three.

Not two, so you might feel strange joining in.

But a table for three. The beginning of a party.

At a table for three, there’s always room for one more.

There’s always room for us.

We are always welcomed to that table.

This three in one God is the soul

that brings us together

that eternal thread that keep us connected beyond

physical separation and even death.

Each part dependant on the other.

Each one existing for the other,

God’s identity is defined in its relationships.

This trinity is a relationship of love.

God the Relationship

is the foundation of the universe

it is the heartbeat of all creation.

As it says in the Athanasius creed:

We worship one God in trinity and the trinity in unity,
    neither blending their persons
    nor dividing their essence.
        For the person of the Father is a distinct person,
        the person of the Son is another,
        and that of the Holy Spirit still another.
        But the divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one,
        their glory equal, their majesty coeternal.

Everything begins and ends in this relationship that is God.

All creation is part of this dance.

We are all part of it:

each one distinct and different,

and at the same time one.