Everything. Everywhere. Everyone. Always. (Matthew 28:16-20) Trinity Sunday

Nessie

Just a few weeks ago — in late April — a tourist riding a bus along the shores of Loch Ness in Scotland saw something. A large, dark object. A fin. Breaking the surface. Moving across the loch. Another Nessie sighting logged for the record books. Yeah… here we go again. In fact, a website that tracks all this says there have been 10 Nessie sightings just this year. Nearly a hundred years of this. Scientists. Skeptics. True believers. Sonar scans. Underwater cameras. DNA sampling of the loch water itself. Expedition after expedition after expedition. And the explanations keep coming. It's a log. It's a wave. It's an otter. It's a trick of the light. And yet. Nobody has definitively proven Nessie doesn't exist either. The loch just sits there. Dark. Deep. Refusing to give up its secret.

Some things resist explanation. Some things are bigger than our categories. Some things make us feel the limits of what we can know and measure and pin down. The Trinity is like that. Except for one REALLY BIG difference. Nessie — if she exists — doesn't care about you. The Trinity does. And the Trinity didn't stay hidden. The Trinity showed up. In a garden. In a burning bush. In a manger. On a cross. In water and a name spoken over a sinner. The unexplainable God turned out to be the most personal being in the universe. And this morning he has something to say to you.

This is Holy Trinity Sunday. It is the Sunday in our year in which we contemplate one of the deepest mysteries of our faith. This is not magic. It’s real. God in three persons, yet one. That's hard to wrap our heads around. We create all sorts of ways to explain it… I’ve seen it explained as water and its three properties, the sun and its three characteristics, the three leaf clover. But all of these things, as creative as they are just fall way short of accurately explaining the mystery of the Trinity.

And it's not just us. Martin Luther said this about it:

“This must be accepted by faith. No matter how clever, acute, and keen reason may be, it will never grasp and comprehend it. If (the reality of the Trinity) were susceptible to our wisdom, then God would not need to reveal it from heaven or proclaim it through Holy Scripture. So be governed by this fact and say: “I believe and confess that there is one eternal God and, at the same time, three distinct Persons, even though I cannot fathom and comprehend this. For Holy Scripture, which is God’s Word, says so; and I abide by what it states.”

That’s Martin Luther saying he doesn’t understand it all. If a great theologian like Luther can’t completely fathom or comprehend the Trinity, I don’t stand a chance. We take what the Bible says in faith. God is one yet three. Can’t explain it, but Christ through His scriptures has revealed this to us for us to believe. It is what we confess in our baptism, being baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or even being baptized “into” the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as some translations interpret it.

And for those who choose to remember their baptism in a visible way, we confess the trinity in our sign of the cross…in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is a reminder that Christ has redeemed us and given us a new identity, in being brought into relationship with a Trinity we don’t fully comprehend.

We confess the Trinity because it is what God says about himself in His Word. And yet we cannot begin to comprehend the mystery. This “One God, Three Persons” is what separates Christianity from the other popular religions of this world. It is a stumbling block to the other large monotheistic faiths, Judaism and Islam, which don't believe it. And most of the great controversies of church history involved some aspect of the Trinity, including the big break between East and West. In fact, it was a stumbling block in Christ's day. It's kind of a running theme in the ministry of Christ. The claim of the religious leaders was that “Christ can't be the son of God because we all know that our God is one God. This is the grand declaration of the Jewish Tradition from the book of Deuteronomy. Our God is one God. He doesn't have a Son.”

Oh, but he does! He has a Son who lives and speaks on behalf of the Godhead. At one point in Christ's ministry, one of his disciples Philip said.. Show us the Father. And an almost incredulous Jesus replies, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. If you want to experience the Trinity, then embrace Jesus.. The one who was declared at birth to be, “God With Us.”

The story of the Trinity.. God who is “Three in One” is at the very beginning of our story. Genesis 1… the opening chapter of the entire Bible. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said. Let US make humans in OUR image. Three persons. One act. The Father speaking. The Word going forth. The Spirit hovering, brooding, active over the chaos. The Trinity was there at the beginning. All three persons. All in. Creating.

The Trinity is all over the Old Testament bringing about and orchestrating our salvation.. the coming Messiah who would make all things right. And the Son takes on humanity’s flesh, goes to the cross, rises from the dead, and then before he ascends to His Father, he has a conversation with some very confused and doubting disciples. And everything — everything — the Trinity decided before the foundation of the world comes to a head in Matthew 28.

The Five Alls: All of the Trinity — FOR YOU

There are five alls in our text this morning… and we’re just going to briefly run right through them...

All of the Trinity. All Authority. All Nations. All Teachings. Always.

The Trinity is hiding in plain sight in Matthew 28. Right there in the baptismal formula. "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." That is not a tag on the end of a formula. And it’s not just a tag line that makes sure that the baptism is a good one. We’re so insistent that the baptism is in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that we begin thinking it’s the certification stamp on the certificate. We're so concerned that the baptism be done correctly, said correctly, performed correctly, that we've made the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit into a quality control check. The theological equivalent of a USDA seal. Approved. Valid. Official.

That is not what is happening here. The name is not a certification stamp. The name is not the thing that makes an otherwise ordinary water ritual officially count. The Trinitarian name being spoken over you in baptism is the full Godhead showing up. In person. FOR YOU. The Father claiming you. The Son redeeming you. The Spirit sealing you. All three persons. All in. Addressed to you. Specifically. By name.

This isn't certification. This is the Trinity doing what the Trinity decided to do before the foundation of the world. The name doesn't validate the baptism. The name IS the baptism. The Word doing what only the Word can do. Speaking a new creature into existence. The fancy theological term here is “fiat”… The entire Trinity… the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit… speaking your eternal life into existence. In baptism.

That’s why we say here that Jesus, as he speaks, is reaching back into Genesis.

Matthew 28:19 “make disciples of all nations by baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,”

Genesis says that the entire Trinity made humanity… created humanity out of nothing by His spoken Word. And it reaches back to Genesis. The same Trinity that hovered and spoke and made is here. Still making. Still speaking. Still bringing something out of nothing. You.

And how do we know that all of the Trinity is FOR YOU?

All Authority - Everything, Everywhere

Because the Son has been given all authority. The Son rules everything… on behalf of the Trinity.

Matthew 28:18 “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.”

Jesus has been given all authority. Not some authority over a small patch of land. All authority. Over everything. Heaven and earth. Everything ever created belongs to Jesus. He owns it all. He has claimed it all. All authority. Given to the One the Trinity sent to go save us from our sins.

All Nations — Everyone

But there is no kingdom without a realm. And Christ's realm is all nations.

"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

What was once for some people in one place is now for all people in all places. The good news isn't exclusive anymore. It is for everyone. And it expands not by power or politics but by making disciples — through baptism and teaching. And just like in Genesis — just like God made image-bearers and immediately sent them, have dominion, fill the earth — the disciple made in baptism is made as something. Sent. Commissioned. Bearing the Trinitarian name into the world. The Great Commission and the creation mandate are not just similar. They are the same theological move at two moments in the one story. Matthew built that arc from page one. You're standing at the end of it.

All nations. Because the Trinity that made the world decided to bring new creation to every corner of it.

Always

Then the last word. At the very beginning of Matthew's gospel, in another scene full of angst and confusion, the angel tells Joseph that the child Mary carries will be called Emmanuel — God with us. That name is the thread running through everything Matthew has written. And here, at the very end, it reaches its fullness. The one who was born of a virgin. The one who suffered and died and rose again. The one who has been given all authority. The one in whom the fullness of the Trinity dwells. That one says: I am with you always.

Always, Emmanuel. Forever, Emmanuel. There is no moment, no hour, no crisis, no grief, no doubt, no fear in which Christ is not present with his people. What was temporary is now permanent. What was for some is now for all. What was in one spot for one time is now everywhere. Always. Forever.

All of the Trinity. All Authority. All Nations. All Teachings. Always Emmanuel.

All the Trinity is All in FOR YOU

This mission to the entire world lands right here in San Benito. Baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In baptism, you are given an identity… you are God’s children. You’ve been given a name… the image of God. You belong to Jesus. You’re forgiven. You’re loved.

All means all. And all includes you.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I can’t say how important this identity question is. We live in a Christian world that thinks we get to choose our identity, instead of understanding that it has already been given to us, outside of ourselves. American Christianity hands the identity question back to you. Choose. Decide. Perform. Find yourself in Jesus — as if the self doing the finding isn't the exact problem. Don't choose that identity. Don’t choose the wordly identity… whatever that is. Instead, choose Jesus. Choose this identity. Make a better choice. Find a better you in the Bible. And it sounds like hope. But it isn't. Because you cannot build a house on a foundation that is also the thing that needs saving. And when the lights go off — when life goes sideways, when the 3am question comes, when everything you built your identity on gets stress-tested — the chosen identity evaporates. And that includes your Christian choices. Because the validity is always resting on the chooser, the one making the choice. And the chooser is a sinner. And sinners don't have the resources to save themselves by choosing harder. Sinners are incapable of choosing the right identity.

That’s why Trinity Sunday and the Trinity matter. The Trinity is not abstract transcendence floating somewhere above your circumstances. The Trinity is not a theological puzzle for academics. The Trinity showed up in water. The Father spoke. The Son redeemed. The Spirit hovered. And they said your name. That is the most concrete, most located, most particular thing that has ever happened to you. Your identity is not something you found. It is something that was declared over you — by the full weight of the Godhead — before you had the capacity to choose anything at all. You are baptized. The Trinity staked a claim on you in love. That claim does not rest on your performance. Does not waver with your feelings. Does not expire when you fail. The fiat went out. The name was spoken. You are named. You are known. You belong to the God who made you and remade you and is not letting go.

So.. this mountain scene in Galilee is not ancient history. It is not a doctrine to be filed away. It is an address. It is God talking at you. Not "all authority has been given" in the abstract — but all authority has been given, for you. Not "disciples are made in baptism" as a theological proposition — but you were made a disciple. The Triune God spoke over water and spoke your name and called a new creature into existence that wasn't there before. Not "I am with you always" as a comfort for the general category of believers — but I am with you. Right here. Right now. In San Benito. The Trinity that decided before the foundation of the world to go get you has not changed its mind. The fiat that went out over the waters of your baptism does not expire. Does not waver. Does not wait for you to feel it before it's true. You are baptized. You are forgiven. You are named. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit staked their claim on you and they are not letting go. All means all. And all — every bit of it — is for you.

Let’s Pray

The Table

The same Trinity that spoke over the waters of your baptism meets you here. At the Table. This is not a memorial. This is not a religious gesture you perform to show God you're serious. This is the Triune God showing up again — in bread and wine, in body and blood — saying the same thing the font said. You are mine. I've got you. The fiat that created you as a new creature in baptism is the same Word that puts the crucified and risen Christ into your hands this morning. The Father who sent. The Son who went. The Spirit who seals. All three persons. All in. For you. Again. Here.