On this festival, The Holy Trinity, we celebrate one of the great treasures and mysteries of the church — the Doctrine of The Holy Trinity.
To begin with, one must confess that it is presumptuous on anyone's part to have the audacity, the unmitigated gall, the naiveté, to presume to explain God, the Holy Trinity. No pastor, no doctor of the church, no professor of theology or philosophy, no deacon, no bishop, cardinal, or pope can describe the indescribable, explain the unexplainable, nor comprehend the incomprehensible!
When we begin to rationally approach the Trinity we can quickly become confused. Like the computer specialist, King Duncan, tells about in his pulpit dynamics sermon:
Well ... I was a little confused. A computer specialist in a high-tech company was required to wear a pager all the time. This beeper was to ensure that he would be available immediately for hardware or software problems. But this poor fellow got reamed out by his supervisor. "No wonder you haven't been answering my pages," said his supervisor, "you're wearing your garage door opener!"1
We all know confusion in this modern world as well as in our faith and life.
The word "trinity" never made it into the Old Testament nor in the gospels. It is not in any of Paul's epistles. You'll find it nowhere in the entire New Testament. Nonetheless, the roots, the trunk, the branches, the essence of the trinity tree flowers and blooms throughout the Bible.
In the Great Commission, Jesus instructs his disciples to baptize "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:19). The apostle Paul underscores the reality of the Trinity in 2 Corinthians 13:13, with a blessing to the Corinthian church, "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you." In our gospel today, John writes, "The Spirit, sent by the Father, reveals God's truth by giving glory to the Son ... making the Son known."
The term "trinity" was first used by Theophilus of Antioch around 80 AD. Then the doctrine itself was hammered out at the Council of Nicea in 325 AD and the Council of Constantinople in 381 AD. The Trinity has had a tough go. The Trinity has been body slammed, pile driven, kicked, assaulted, maligned, and ridiculed. The cults today have no interest or patience with the "trinity." The Jehovah's Witnesses hate it. The Mormons despise it. The Unification church attacks it. So the church developed three special security guards at the Councils of Nicea and Constantinople. These three security guards are big, burly, strong, no-nonsense characters. Their job is keep out riffraff, liars, and deceivers. Every time you and I worship they stand outside the church doors without fail. One probably doesn't notice them. They stand in the shadows.
Usually one of them comes in and joins worship. They have names. Their last name is Credo (I believe) from which we get the word "creed." Their first names are Apostles', Nicene, and Athanasian. They are good friends and loyal protectors of the faith. They refuse to put up with any guff from the cults, the new agers, lazy Christians, or any distorters of orthodox Christianity.
When sincere, but misled, cult members knock on your door, shove a tract in your face, and crow foolish things like, "Jesus is brother to the devil," "Jesus was married and has children in heaven," or "Jesus was a lesser god, a created being," these burly security guards flex their muscles and shout, "No way!"
Because of this, on The Holy Trinity and every Sunday, Christians respond to God's grace by doing two important things. We recite the creeds and we sing our lungs out! An ancient Chinese proverb chirps, "The bird does not sing because she has an answer, she sings because she has a song."
My wife said in her childhood church in Minnesota, they always began worship with a hymn to the Trinity — "Holy, Holy, Holy." On the altar parament of a Norwegian church I served in South Dakota were the words, Heilige, Heilege, Heilege. Three Holies in Norwegian praising the Holy Trinity.
We Must Sing On This Holy Trinity Sunday Because Our Rational Concept Of God Is Too Small
We first experience God as creator. Most every morning I hike the forest near my log house. Daisy and Rascal, my two white Jack Russell terriers, happily accompany me. As we hike along the logging trail I repeat the phrase from Genesis 1, "It is good." "It is good" is the chorus in that great hymn of the creation story. I say those words, add "Lord," and it becomes a prayer. It is a mantra spoken or chanted in cadences every four steps. You can do it, too. Walk and pray in 4:4 time. I see an Aspen peeking through the granite outcroppings and I pray, "It is good, Lord." I sniff the sweet aroma of vanilla carmel floating through the air from the Ponderosa Pine and I murmur, "It is good, Lord." I see a cottontail rabbit and my tethered dogs go berserk. I whisper, "It is good, Lord." I see a midget brown bear — oh — it turns out to be a chunky marmot. He looks like he has been eating pizza all winter long and needs to go to Weight Watchers. I repeat, "It is good, Lord." I meet people — fellow hikers, neighbors, and tourists. When I hike Mount Harney, I join 80,000 climbers, walkers, and hikers, who go up every year. I say, "It is good, Lord." I see the sun, the ferns, the moss, and the blue bell flowers.
I recall the reports from astronomers who scan the stars, the planets, the galaxies and they tell us creation is still going on.
Look around you. "The heavens," the psalmist sang, "are telling the glory of God." Psalm 8 chants, "When I consider the heavens, what is man?"
How big is the universe? On February 23, 1987, an astronomer observed with his naked eye the explosion of a distant supernova. It was a blast so powerful that it released as much energy in one second as our sun will release in ten billion years. I find this absolutely mind-boggling, that this supernova exploded 170,000 years ago. It took that long for the light generated by that distant event, traveling almost six trillion miles a year to reach our watching astronomer. To top it off, the astronomers tell us that the universe is expanding.
Discoveries in 2006 and 2007 of new black holes and more exploding stars boggle our rational minds. For God, the Father creator, time and space is measured differently. Time is a convenience by which we measure things but surely not God. We would like to create God in our own image, manageable, manipulable, but God is the Divine Other. God is beyond our reason and comprehension. Rudoph Otto in, his ageless book, The Idea of the Holy, calls God the "mysterium tremendum." All believers cannot resist breaking out in song and singing to the rafters of the glory and majesty of God as creator. We join the psalmist in Psalm 138, "Great is the glory of the Lord."
In the presence of God our creator — the works of God the Father, I am humbled. In awe I worship and whisper, "It is good, Lord."
We Recite And We Sing On The Holy Trinity Because We Know Our God Came Near
We sing "Joy To The World" and celebrate Christmas even in June. We sing "Away In A Manger" and "O Little Town Of Bethlehem." When we celebrate not only the birth but also the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus we add to our anthems, "My Song Is Love Unknown," "Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?" and "Christ Is Risen From The Dead" along with "Holy, Holy, Holy."
Fred Gilbertson from Oregon fell in love with a lovely young lady. How was he to propose to her and tell her that he loved her? Fred decided to rent a billboard. The billboard read, "Cheri ... marry me. Fred." Cheri passed that billboard day after day but never noticed or saw the message.
Finally her friends told her about it. The next time she saw it, she read it and she said, "Yes" to Fred.
God's eternal love came down in Jesus. Easily many pass by and never "read" the message — "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son...."
As a delegate to a recent church-wide assembly, I was standing outside the Elmen Center at Augustana College in Sioux Falls when I noticed a stranger standing nearby. He introduced himself and said his name was Del D. Then he said, "I'm a convict from the South Dakota Penitentiary. I'm here representing St. Dysmas, the Lutheran church behind bars. I'm a changed man, pastor, only the love of Christ can change a person."
I smiled and shook his hand and said to myself, "You are amazing Lord Jesus."
We believe and sing in four-part harmony of Jesus: Truly human, truly divine. Jesus, God enfleshed. Our three security guards will never allow the singing to stop, nor the truth to be compromised. Jesus only is God. Neither Shirley McLaine, nor the Mormons, will tempt us to believe that we will be or are gods in the making.
The Third Thing We Sing About On The Holy Trinity Is That Our God Is Now
God is in the present tense through the Holy Spirit. Jesus said in our gospel reading, "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth" (v. 13).
The Holy Spirit is here in this place. The Holy Spirit is as close as your heartbeat and as enlivening as your breath. The Holy Spirit is at work in and through the word of God, the sacraments, and the people of God. When we feel our faith is fainting, the Holy Spirit gets to work making believers out of us. When we don't feel generous with our tithes or time or resources the Holy Spirit is at work making stewards out of us. When we don't feel very loving, the Holy Spirit is busy creating lovers out of us.
A pastor who followed me in my first parish, Pastor Charles Mountain, wrote this song to the tune of St. Thomas, SM. ["I Love Thy Kingdom"]:
With sighs too deep for words,
the Spirit in us prays;
what human tongues cannot express
th' indwelling Spirit says.
With longing Ages long,
the Spirit in us groans;
with pangs of new creation's birth
the Dove, new brooding, moans.
With access to God's mind
the Spirit intercedes;
and God, who searches human hearts
gives knowledge of our needs.
O God most intimate,
O Spirit, mend our minds;
O help us hear the Kingdom's call:
the hope that frees and binds.2
The word for us today is this: Take a hike. Go and experience God the creator. Hike and pray in your nearby state park, the Grand Canyon, or your backyard. See marmots, moles, and mountains. Take a hike. See Jesus, the Savior. He who loves you and saves you by his grace. Take a hike. Experience the holy wind, holy breath, holy power, and peace from on high. Our God is an awesome God.
Thanks to our three security guard friends whose eyes scan the horizon while we sing our doxologies to the Holy Trinity — God the creator, redeemer, and sanctifier. Amen.
1. King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com.
2. Charles Mountain, Hymn-Canticles For The Church Year (Lima, Ohio: CSS Publishing Co., 1997), p. 152.