Holy Trinity

Welcome Statement

Good Morning everyone! Last week we reflected and experienced the epitome of the gift of the Holy Spirit descending upon everyone. This week is a doctrinal consequence of that gift. It’s Trinity Sunday! I alluded to it a bit last week, what I didn’t realize is that they were back to back, so it actually worked out! It’s hard to believe, my first sermon I wrote for CLM class was actually on Trinity Sunday last year. So this is the second time now I get to reflect on this fundamental doctrine. One of the interesting things is, this is the only day in the liturgical year that is named after a doctrine, not an event or something say “explicitly scriptural”. This isn’t to say that the Trinity isn’t scriptural, but the word trinity itself isn’t in the Bible. We derive it’s understanding from the relationships that Christ has with the Father and with the spirit. We needed a philosophical framework to explain this and bind ourselves to as a believing church, to comprehend what God had exposed us to as he revealed parts of himself past the veil throughout scripture. Some people think the Trinity can be limiting, I disagree. Human language is not meant to be all encompassing of God’s nature. The Trinity is only meant to describe how God relates to himself in scripture, and how he relates to us as he saves us in scripture. Once you start to understand this, the complications of the 3-in-1 personhood starts to make a bit more sense. It’s about describing relationships in scripture.

Old Testament Reading - Isaiah 6:1-8

Isaiah 6:1–8 ESV

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.”

Holy, Holy, Holy!

Oh boy, there’s some familiar language. Holy, Holy, Holy! So there are some trinitarian hints here like the repeating of Holy three times. One aside here is this scripture alone has inspired many songs. I have printed out some of these songs for you to read on your own time to help give you some colorful language to understand these relationships. This passage is a pivotal moment in the life of the prophet Isaiah. It’s a first-person, personal account of a pivotal moment in his life where he gets to meet the Lord of Hosts! The King! This is curious however. Remember how I discussed last year, this idea in the old Testament, that there was a fear of one dieing or being vaporized almost if ever being exposed in the full glory of the Godhead, which is why God would only ever reveal himself in a veiled sense as the Angel of the Lord, a precursor to the Spirit and Christ. John has some interesting commentary that gives us some insight on what is going on here:

John 12:38–41 (NIV)

This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet:

“Lord, who has believed our message

and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”

For this reason they could not believe, because, as Isaiah says elsewhere:

“He has blinded their eyes

and hardened their hearts,

so they can neither see with their eyes,

nor understand with their hearts,

nor turn—and I would heal them.”

Isaiah said this because he saw Jesus’ glory and spoke about him.

We must remember Isaiah was called to tell these words of prophecy to hardened hearts, and John, with his visions and inspiration, understood what Isaiah witnessed. He understood Isaiah witnessed Christ at that throne. This is why he did not die. He was experiencing a vision of Christ, not a full representation of the full Glory of God, just the human image of Christ most likely.

Lord of Hosts

Also, what is this name, Lord of Hosts? Well, Lord comes from YHWH, and Hosts comes from Sabaoth. It literally means armies. NIV sometimes likes to translate this as Lord Almighty. It first appears in the bible at the close of the Judges period and is in reference to Shiloh where the Ark of the Covenant is kept. as he sits enthroned above the Cherubim

1 Samuel 4:4 ESV

So the people sent to Shiloh and brought from there the ark of the covenant of the Lord of hosts, who is enthroned on the cherubim. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God.

It’s to establish that God is that supreme ruler over all the armies in Israel, and over all the armies in Heaven. It’s another expression of the Kingship. I think this would suggest another hinting at Christ in some way, but that is probably more speculative than anything.

New Testament Reading - John 3:1-7

John 3:1–17 ESV

Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Born of Water & Spirit

One of the more interesting Trinitarian points that crossover into a debate with baptism is this phrase “born of water and the Spirit”. Theres two ways to interpret this, that would at least be valid from the Methodist perspective in terms of how we understand salvation, that you only need to have faith. It either is referring to that a person have to literally physically be born, or it is describing spiritual cleansing (ie. washing), which would have been understood in some language by Nicodemus, as that was something 2nd temple Judaism did do through a process called mikva'ot, which was spiritual cleansing through water, which is where I believe John the Baptist got the idea of immersion from. But this then makes us ask a question. Does this mean we need to be baptized to fulfill this requirement? Well think about this for a minute, I did talk about this complication of the difference between the baptism of the water and the baptism of the spirit (it isn’t quite appropriate either to call what we do in our churches, the baptism of water, because it’s really not what John the Baptist did, but more of a recognition of actual baptism, hence the confusion, but I’m using the term here to differentiate between regeneration and symbolic baptism), and why we recognize two different patterns of baptism in our church, and why we don’t enforce child baptisms nor believer’s baptisms. While baptisms are something that is normative and important for a person’s faith journey, that are not necessary for salvation. Faith is. The baptism of water, which is what is being performed in the ceremony, in the case of a believer’s baptism, is just confirming what is already the case, that you have heard the word and accepted it, and you are being formally accepted into the congregation. We still believe God’s grace move’s spiritually through this, but spiritual baptism occurs the moment someone accepts the word, we witness this with Paul simply telling people what it is, and holding their hand. This is why baptism is so complicated. In the case of a child, the baptism of water is welcoming them into the church, dedicating them to the life and teachings of the church, they are already covered and protected by prevenient Grace, that is already guaranteed the moment they were born. As they grow in the church, and study the word, at some moment, when the word finally clicks for them, and they find themselves truly moved by it, that is when the Spirit fully and truly enters their heart, in some sense of regeneration, I think. I think there is an element of mystery to this relationship we are afraid to leave undefined, because we want it to be clear cut, but my own experience of baptism, and life after baptism, made it clear that baptism isn’t a one-stop shop for the journey, it’s a starting point. To put it another way for those who are looking for more theological language, baptism is an outward sign of an inward reality. Sometimes this point before actual baptism in the church is called regeneration as well, the reason I am using the language in scripture, is to help us understand the difference between symbolism and spiritual realities of scripture as well as the differences that sometimes come up in our wesleyan theology, that do match up, but theologians of course, really like to change names on things and that makes my head hurt! The point is that baptism is being faithful to the call of being a follower of Christ. But this helps us understand how the Spirit might reach us in life, through our belief, or gradual growing in belief as we grow within the church.

You can only Go to Heaven through the Son

This understanding of the Spirit we learned of as the helper, helps us to understand it’s bridging point to the Son. This Son, who has established his flag of victory in history on the Cross, is our only vantage point of being able to cross over to Heaven, to reach the Father. Becasue of Christ, the Father is no longer a distant Father. He is here, in our hearts. This is because the Father is IN Christ, the Spirit is IN Christ, and Christ is IN the Spirit. See how that works? Even though the Father acts as the creator, since inherently God is the same in all 3 persons, we are now able to connect simply because we have the helper, the spirit. We are not distant from the Father anymore. Everytime we pray to Jesus Christ like he is beside us, we find ourselves wanting to pray upward like the Father is up in the clouds, but that is oh so very wrong. They all 3 are in our hearts. The Trinity resides in our hearts. The thing is, there is a practical-ish understanding to this relationship. It is how God relates to himself. Christ when he was baptized, felt his father’s presence through the helper, the spirit at his baptism, when he was filled with the spirit (oh boy now my head hurts). The father told Christ he was well pleased with his son. Christ asked the father later if this cup could be taken away from him if possible, but due to his obedience to the Father, which would include being faithful to himself in some sense and his own mission, he adhered and followed through to death on the cross. The Spirit pushed through all of this. His human and divine body, was the only reason he could withstand the temptations of the desert. In Acts, we witness the apostles receiving the Holy Spirit, being able to do wonderous deeds only Jesus was able to perform before, and now they carry the same weight and authority that Jesus carried through the Malchezidek priesthood, because Jesus is in the Holy Spirit.

Closing Statement

What is important to understand is, Christ is that personhood of God that relates to us as he is fully human and fully divine, able to withstand past all sin, able to feel as we feel, the pain and emotion of any human, understanding what we all go through. With the Spirit, he is able to help us move mountains, with the Spirit, we are moved to do great things. The Father is our creator who created this entire universe, has developed the plans he has for each of us, and chose us before we betrayed him. So when we pray, it is not weird to recognize each of them, it is not strange to even have separate prayers to each person of God, as in each case, we are just talking to God each time, but it is helping us appreciate and call upon God in how and where he works in our lives. We are never afraid to call upon the Father and Jesus, but sometimes the idea of praying to the Holy Spirit seems strange, since we see it as a passive after-effect or as Jesus calls “helper”. But it really is, a Person in the trinity, so it is important, we recognize the place of the Holy Spirit too! My hope is, I was able to disentangle a little bit, the trinity today, that it is so much more about how God relates to humanity, and how he relates to himself in scripture, and that it helps us understand why the story to the cross is so peculiar, strange, and powerful, and why there is nothing like it. Let us celebrate the mystery of our Divine, Triune God! Let us pray.

Closing Prayer

Heavenly God, We celebrate the complex mysteries of your divine nature today. As we reflected in Isaiah, you are the Lord of Hosts, over all of the universe. Help us to remember how you live throughout our lives as sovereign in our hearts as the spirit. Help us to remember how you live as our human friend as Jesus Christ, and help us to remember why you did it all in the first place as our creator and Father in Heaven. Lord, we celebrate and glorify you today with our worship, as we reflect on changing into the ordinary season of the liturgical year. Help us to not let this be an ordinary season! Let us show the full glory of three persons in the 1 you! As it is said in:

Exodus 3:14 ESV

God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ”

You are that Go who simply is, uncreated. Let us remember you through our convictions, our creeds, and our oaths, to our churches, and our families.

Amen.

Doxology / Benediction / Closing

As you go out this week, reflect on the mystery of God’s nature, it’s beauty, how the Father has created this beautiful world for his people, and his church, how Christ has defeated death, and how the Spirit has filled this Church and our hearts to do good in the world. i now close with this verse from 2nd Corinthians:

2 Corinthians 13:14 ESV

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

May you Have a Blessed Sunday, and rest of your Week! Amen!