The Church Season of Trinity
Holy Trinity Sunday
Holy Trinity Sunday
Our Savior Lutheran Church, Midland, MI (June 3, 2012)
Readings: Isaiah 6:1-7
Romans
11:33-36John 3:1-17
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Grace, mercy and peace be to you from the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen
Grace, mercy and peace be to you from the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen
The text for today is as recorded in the Gospel Lesson
from the 3rd chapter of St. John, especially the following verses.
John 3: 14-17
14And as Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15that
whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 16"For God
so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him
should not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his
Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be
saved through him.
Today
is the celebration of one of the great mysteries of the faith – the teaching of
the Holy Trinity. It is one of those
teachings of the Bible that no one can understand no matter how much they study
and think about it and that is a hard saying.
Scriptures pointing to the reality of the Trinity teaches us that God is
a community of three persons, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It teaches that all of God is available in
God the Father, all of God is available in God the Son, and that all of God is
available in God the Holy Spirit. Now,
by human logic, if each person of the Trinity is all of God, then there are
three gods, but that is not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that there is one and only
one God. So, the Bible teaches that God
is fully available in each and every person of the Trinity and yet there are
not three gods, but only one God. No one
can really understand this. Fortunately,
God does not ask us to understand the Trinity.
He only asks us to believe it.
And what do we believe? Well we
say exactly what we believe each Sunday when we repeat one of the Creeds. And this is precisely what “Creed” means, from the Latin
word “credo” or “I believe.”
But, none of those things are in the Bible. As a matter of fact, yes, they are…In God (Deut. 6:4 1 Cor. 8:6)
The Father (Psalm 89:27; Matthew 7:11)
Almighty (Genesis 7:1; 2 Cor. 6:18)
Maker of heaven and earth (Psalm 33:6; John 5:17)
And in Jesus (Zech 9:9; Matthew 1:21)
Christ (Daniel 9:24; John 3:34)
His only (Zechariah 13:7; John 1:14)
Son (Psalm 2:7; Matthew 16:16)
Our Lord (Jeremiah 23:6; John 20:28)
Who was conceived (Jeremiah 31:22; Luke 1:31)
By the Holy Spirit (Daniel 2:45; Matthew 1:20)
Born (Isaiah 9:6; John 1:14)
Of the Virgin Mary (Isaiah 7:14; Luke 1:43)
Suffered (Isaiah 50:6; Luke 23:25)
Under Pontius Pilate (Psalm 2:2; Luke 18:32)
Was crucified (Psalm 22:17; John 3:14)
Died (Daniel 9:26; Rom. 5:8)
And was buried (Isaiah 53:9; John 12:24)
Descended into hell (Psalm 16:10; Ephesians 4:9)
And on the third day (Hosea 6:2; Matthew 26:32; Acts 10:40-41)
He rose again from the dead (Isaiah
63:1; 2 Timothy 2:8)
Ascended into heaven (Psalm
68:19; Col. 2:15)And sits at the right hand of the God the Father Almighty (Psalm 110:1; Mark 16:19)
From thence he will come (Isaiah 66:15; Acts 1:11)
To judge (Wisdom of Solomon 6:6; Acts 17:31)
The living and the dead (Daniel 12:2; 1 Cor. 15:51)
I believe in the Holy Spirit (Zechariah 12:10; John 15:26)
The holy (Psalm 45:14; Ephesians 5:26)
Christian Church (Psalm 22:26; Matthew 16:18)
The communion of saints (Exodus 19:5; Ephesians 4:3)
The forgiveness of sins (Psalm 32:1; Acts 10:43)
The resurrection of the body (Isaiah 66:14; John 5:28)
And the life everlasting (Psalm 16:11; 1 Peter 1:4)
Amen! (Psalm 72:19; 2 Cor. 1:20)
We
speak of God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth. This means that God the Father takes the lead
in creating all things including the human race. At the same time the Holy Spirit inspired
John the Apostle to speak of Jesus and write,“All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing
made that was made. From these words
we learn that the Son of God had a role in the creative process.
We
speak of God the Son as the redeemer.
This means that God the Son takes the lead in the work of
redemption. At the same time, today’s
Gospel tells us, “God so loved the world,
that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but
have eternal life.” So we see that
it is God the Father who gives God the Son to be our savior.
We
speak of God the Holy Spirit as the Sanctifier.
This means that the Holy Spirit is the one who makes us holy in the
sight of God. He does this by delivering
forgiveness and working faith in us by means of the Gospel. At the same time, the Holy Spirit inspired
Luke to tell us that His Gospel dealt with, “ all that Jesus began to do and teach.” These words teach us that Jesus continued to
do and teach even after He ascended into heaven.
The
life of Christ has several examples of the Trinity working together. Listen to the words of Gabriel speaking to
the Virgin Mary: “The angel answered her,
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will
overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of
God.” The incarnation was a team
effort.
That
same triune God that was working together at His incarnation continued to do so
throughout His life. Jesus began His
public ministry at His Baptism. What
happened? The Holy Spirit came down as a
dove. The Father declared that Jesus is
His beloved Son and that He is well pleased with Jesus. Jesus began His mission of salvation together
with the Father and Holy Spirit, and all are active in completing our
salvation. He regularly prayed to His
Father, and the Spirit was with him every step of the way.
There
is one time when the Son of God was alone.
That was the time when He cried out, “My
God, My God, Why have You forsaken Me?” Jesus
had just endured a fatal dose of cruel torture for us. His cry came from the cross as He endured
hell for us. Even His Father abandoned
him as He went through hell for us. Yet even though Jesus was alone in His
suffering, the influence of the Father was still there – Jesus was carrying out
His Father’s will by going to the cross.
On Easter morning, the Father raised him from the dead. Later, when Jesus ascended into heaven, He
sent His Holy Spirit to establish and nurture the Church. He did all this out
of love for us – so that we could have eternal life.
We
aren’t born with eternal life. Each and
every one of us has inherited a broken relationship with God. It is that broken relationship that makes
life in this world so hard. We all have
hassles in our lives. We are all
familiar with Murphy’s Law: If anything can go wrong it will go wrong at the
worst possible time and in the worst possible way. We live with frustration, danger, injury, and
disease. Sooner or later each and every
one of us will die. All of these are the
results and the symptoms of our sin – our broken relationship with the Triune
God – a broken relationship that can only end in both temporal and eternal
death. Jesus took the lead to create a
new, healthy relationship with God. He
took the lead and the Father and the Holy Spirit supported Him as He sacrificed
Himself to save us from our sin.
How
do we receive that new relationship?
Once again we see the teamwork of the Triune God at work. Just as the Father sent the Son to earn our
forgiveness, so He sends the Holy Spirit to offer that forgiveness to us
through the gift of faith. In today’s
Gospel Jesus tells Nicodemus and us that the Holy Spirit must give us a new
birth. All those who believe in Jesus
Christ for the forgiveness of sins are born again from above.
This is all a great
mystery. God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit have worked out all the details. They have worked together to satisfy both
love and justice. They have even given
us the faith that receives the benefits of their teamwork.
And so then as sinful humans what do we still ask? What can I then do? What is my role? Your role in your salvation
is nothing, Jesus did it all and His promise to you is conveyed to you through
the water and the Word combined in Holy Baptism. Your role in your forgiveness is nothing, it
is conveyed to you by receiving the bread and wine, the body and blood of
Christ. Hear the Word of God who gives
you forgiveness. And really that is all
we are to do in Church, receive because those is Christ’s imperatives. Go baptize, Do this, this is for you.
Yes, but shouldn’t I do something? YES! Help the poor the sick and the lame, comfort
your friends and your enemies. Do this not for salvation, nor to gain favor
with God, but rather because of the richness of grace you have received freely.
We will never understand how this all works in
this world. We may not even understand
it in the next. Fortunately, God does not
ask us to understand it. He only expects
us to believe it and then He even supplies the faith that does the
believing. It is all a gift from the
true God who loves us and wants us to live with Him forever and ever. Amen
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