Trinity Sunday (2024)

This week kicks off the season of Trinity. Trinity basically takes up half the year. Where when we get to advent something is always happening…Bam Christmas…bam epiphany. Bam lent. Bam bam bam holy week, Maundy Thurs, Good Friday, Easter. Bam Ascension, Bam pentecost. We are going to get a lot fewer bams, and much more rolling up of our sleeves.

We Liturgically have lived through the story of Jesus Atoning work and now we, empowered by the HS will continue his work on.

Christ calls us to personal holiness, he calls us to evangelism, to caring for the poor, and so on and so forth.

In the Garden God intended that Adam would be a co-laborer with God in tending to creation, that is lost in the fall of mankind and now that Jesus restores our fellowship with God we pick it up again.

TMain Point:******

The Text.

The Book of Revelation has no shortage of interpretations. Do the events describe current happenings, previous happenings, or upcoming happenings? As we walk through Revelation four we are not going to dive into that question by more what about the Heavenly space is it describing? What can we know about God and his character by reading chapter four?

[1] After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” [2] At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne.

John has been given messages to pass on to 7 different churches in the ancient world, and after this…he is going to some narrative happening. What I would tell you is that chapter four is going to describe the throne room and chapter 5 will actually describe the upcoming narrative happening. So we are not going to read about an event today, but instead about what God’s space is like.

To arrive in that space, John is in the SPirit. We have the first appearance of a member of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. And he is transported either literally or in a vision to God’s throne room. And he sees the person in the THrone, God the Father. We are in the Spirit, and we are seeing the Father.

[3] And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald. [4] Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders, clothed in white garments, with golden crowns on their heads.

We do not get a lot of concrete descriptions of God's look. No hair, eye color height, or strength, instead we get a comparison to something brilliant, jewels. Light through Jewelry would have been very brilliant and colorful in a time where Dyes where expensive. There was not a lot of art decco. THink about it. The world would have been a lot of browns and greens and blue water, and here we see that God radiates colorful light like jewlery would. And there was also a rainbow, taking us back to God’s promise of care to Noah.

And not only was there God’s brilliance but around him he is attended to. By 24, 12 and 12, The twelve tribes of the first Israel and the 12 tribes of the New Israel led by the disciples. The Church, Old and New Testament in in the presence of God.

Clothed in white…with royal distinction (Holy Royal Priesthood.

[5] From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God, [6] and before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass, like crystal.

The things we see from Mount Siani, where Moses received the 10 commandments are also there. Lightning, Thunder. This is the same God of the Old Testament but not in our space…in his space.

7 Torches, the seven spirits… (HS? The Churches of CHapters 1-3, some other entity? My guess the HS.)

Sea of Glass

And around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: [7] the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight. [8] And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!”

Four living Creatures: The Creatures from Ez. They see all that happens on the earth with complete vision, (Early church connections The Four Gospels).

Six wings and singing like in Isaiah.

[9] And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, [10] the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying, [11] “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.”

The Angelic beings initiate worship that is then mirrored bu the 12 creatures who worship by giving acclaim and their material treasure and their power.

God is worthy, he is worthy of our acclaim for having made us and that we continue to exist. He does so for his own pleasure.

There is one glaring omission from this throne room…the Son. Previous chapter and the chapter after. This is a Trinity Sunday text and it seems to be missing something important.

So what is ours to do in light of this Revelation of God on his throne.

First, the God revealed in the New Testament is not a different God than the NT. We are seeing more clearly what has been given to us previously but it is not a rewriting. In the OT God would give us glimpses of him in our Space. In Christ we see God in our space. Now we see God as he is in his space.

Two from his Throne God is master of creation and all things are happening according to his will. Even the scary stuff (the sea) answers to his authority.

The church is essential in the revelation of God, and in the primary activity of God’s creation…worship.

Let me take a quick detour here. Lift up…

Finally…Adam and Eve had access to God and his space, that is what Eden was, a heavenly space where God was and his perfect creation would worship him. Because of their disobedience, they are cast out, and all humanity after them. This perfect wonderful reality of God’s presence was not off limits to humans. Instead of Eternal life humanity was not deserving of quite the opposite. Without any intervention, we would eternally experience Hell, the opposite of God’s good presence. And we live in that identity. Instead of relational peace, we have relational death, instead of obedience to God we live in disobedience. We fully live in this ID and we deserve its outcome.

But Jesus comes out of the throne room of God and into our presence and perfectly lives out obedient life. He does what the original Adam did not do. His reward is that he takes that human form with him back to the presence God. His incarnation, his life, and his death, make a way for us back into this throne room. We follow Christ to this space week in and week out to be guests at his table to eat the meal prepared by God and the meal that is of God. Our entry in is the cross. This is all accomplished because Jesus did it.

We today remember the role Jesus plays in the trinity, we remember the reward of heaven, then we role up our sleeves and participate through worship and good works. Let us commune with God here today, and tomorrow go out and be the hands and feet of Jesus to our community. AMEN?