Holy Trinity Sunday

The Triune God

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Brothers and sisters in Christ: grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

You may have noticed that a few months ago, I changed how I began my sermons. Previously, I would offer a short prayer to begin, followed by a greeting from one of the Epistles in the New Testament. I replaced the prayer with the “Trinitarian invocation” - beginning in the name of the Holy Trinity. I did that because I have been looking more deeply into the Lutheran tradition, and that is how Lutheran preaching was done traditionally for many years, beginning and ending the sermon with the name of the Holy Trinity.

The Holy Trinity, the Triune God, is difficult to understand. I can still remember Pr. Carlsson teaching us in Confirmation that God is the “Three-in-one and one-in-Three”…that it was difficult to understand and that we would probably never fully understand how that works. That always frustrated me, but now that I’m in his shoes, I understand why he explained it that way. I don’t know that we really *can* understand how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit can be One God. But it’s important that we understand that we worship One God…and ONLY one God.

In Deuteronomy 6:4-5, Moses is instructing the people in God’s Law, which he has just received from YHWH: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” The Lord is ONE. You’ve heard me say before: our salvation is tied to the Jews. We cannot just throw away the Old Testament. It is what gives and teaches God’s Law, and He IS our God…this God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The God of Israel, the God of the Hebrew people, is the God of Christians. This statement from Deuteronomy must then be true. The Lord is ONE. But God is “Triune” - three in one.

So each of our readings today speak to the different persons of the Holy Trinity. We have One God, but there are three persons of the Holy Trinity. Not 3 “parts” - which would indicate that each is not complete without the other two. Each person is “fully God”. They are “persons” of the Trinity. It is improper to think that each are 1/3. It is also not right to think that this one God appears in 3 different modes, or one God who wears 3 different masks. There 3 distinct persons of the Trinity, and each is different from the other.

In the first reading today, God is creating. This the awesome power of God the Father. Notice how in the very first part, we already have a reference to the Holy Spirit. So we are given a description of how creation happened. “And God said,...” and it was. Whatever God spoke into being, it came to be. He created with the power of His Word. He said it, and it happened. That’s POWER.

One scholar that I like to take notes from pointed something out to me here that I didn’t think about before. Before God created everything, if He were just one person, He would have been totally alone, right? So He wouldn’t have had to say anything out loud. He could have just THOUGHT it, and it would have happened. So then, why did God speak out loud? Because He wasn’t alone. The Father was speaking and the Son and the Spirit were with Him. This passage tells us that the Spirit was there. John 1:1 tells us that the Son was there. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word WAS God.” God was having a conversation!

Now, if you notice that when God made something, how did He assess His work? “God saw that it was good.” This was His observation on the 1st day, twice on the 3rd day, (He didn’t call the “expanse” that separated the waters on the 2nd day “good”), the 4th day, and the 5th day, and in the first part of the 6th day. But then God made something on the 6th day that He saw differently: He created male and female in His own image. And then God saw that what He had made was VERY good.

But did you notice when God decided to make human beings, how does that conversation go? Verse 26: “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Plural. More than one. Holy Trinity. Triune God.

Peter’s sermon in Acts chapter 2 gives us a different view of the Holy Trinity. The passage we have today picks up immediately after what we read last week. This is happening right after the Pentecost - the giving of the Holy Spirit. But Peter is talking mostly about the Second Person of the Trinity - God the Son, Jesus Christ. And he spends a good bit of time explaining that Jesus was no ordinary carpenter from Nazareth who knew his Scripture pretty well. Peter lists a variety of reasons…proof… that Jesus IS the Son of God. Even though Jesus was killed, it was according to God’s divine plan, and gave Him the opportunity to defeat death and the grave. And Peter even reminds them that King David had been looking forward to this Messiah. Peter then speaks of the Holy Trinity: “This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.” There they are — all 3 Persons of the Trinity.

What do you suppose is the most important part of Peter’s sermon here? I hope you said “the resurrection of Christ”. Because that’s the answer. That Christ was crucified, died, and was buried is central to everything we believe. Yes, we believe that God created us and all that is. But such a god would not have to be involved with us. This God, however…OUR God, DID get involved with us. HAS BEEN involved with us from the very beginning. He has NEVER left us alone (although He did let the Hebrews feel that way at times when they turned their backs on Him). He has always been there, watching us, waiting for us to return to Him, working to draw us back to Him. And when He saw that we weren’t able to come back to Him on our own, He sent His Son to do exactly that. He came to be with us, to teach us, to heal us, and to redeem us…so that we COULD return to Him. That is who God the Son *is*.

And when the Son returned to be at the right hand of the Father, He promised not to leave us alone. He promised that the Father would send us a Helper, and that is God the Holy Spirit. On Pentecost, that is exactly what happened - God sent the Holy Spirit to be with us. He came to rest on those 120 disciples, and ever since then, any new believer, at their baptism, is given the Holy Spirit. “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit, and marked with the Cross of Christ forever.” The Holy Spirit is always with us.

Finally we have our Gospel text for today: the Great Commission as it’s known. This is the very last few verses of Matthew’s Gospel. Notice what happens here. First, there are only eleven of them - they haven’t replaced Judas yet. And they followed Jesus’ post-resurrection instructions - to go to the mountain in Galilee to meet Him one last time before His ascension. Now, have you noticed this before: “And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted.” They’ve already witnessed the resurrected Christ! They’ve seen that the ultimate promise of God has come true - Jesus was raised from the dead…AS HE SAID… “but some doubted.” I take GREAT comfort in this line, because I have doubts sometimes too. But that word “doubt” is not necessarily the “unbelief” we usually think of when hearing this word.

Here’s an explanation I found that I think is very helpful: “The verb translated by both NIV and ESV as ‘doubted’ suggests being divided within oneself about what to do rather than the kind of unbelief we associate with doubt. (This word is not used to describe, e.g., ‘doubting Thomas.’) [one scholar] suggests the translation ‘hesitated,’ provides a helpful discussion of this word. The verse, especially reinforced by other passages from Matthew, gives us a picture not of disciples refusing to worship Jesus because they did not believe in him, rather of disciples who were so confused and overwhelmed by the sight of their risen Lord that they did not know what to do. Recall that the last time these men had seen Jesus they were fleeing for their lives, abandoning him to his captors. What is the proper greeting when you meet someone whom you have betrayed and denied and handed over to the cruelest of deaths but who is now risen from the dead? Hesitation is, humanly speaking, quite understandable here.” And even with their "hesitations”, Jesus STILL commissions them. But first He tells them how He is able to do that. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” In other words, there is NO HIGHER authority in heaven or on earth. That means Jesus holds equal authority to the Heavenly Father. Jesus *is* God.

The reason we have Creeds is that there are those who doubt that Jesus truly is God…or they doubt that Jesus truly is human. This statement here in Matthew 28:18 directly tells us that Jesus truly is God. His punishment at the hands of Roman guards … his “scourging”… and his death on the cross tell us that He truly is human as well. Even post-resurrection, the apostles touching the wounds in his hands and his side, feeling his flesh, they witnessed his true humanity. But now, He asserts His authority and gives His followers their commission: to make disciples of all nations, and to baptize them. Not just in His name. Not just in the name of the Heavenly Father, but in the name of the Holy Trinity. Although Jesus doesn’t use that term - Trinity - this is one place in Scripture that most clearly describes our Triune God. All three persons.

Last year on this day, I described how making the sign of the cross on yourself is related to the Holy Trinity. Our Father in Heaven, thank you for sending Your Son down to save me, and for giving me the Holy Spirit, to be with me and help me as I go out into the world, and for staying in my heart. Amen. Use this as a prayer. This is a very Lutheran practice. Luther says it should be the first part of your prayer when you wake up, and the first part of your prayer before you go to bed. It is a visible way to remember who our God is.

What does it mean to be child of the Triune God? Why is it important that our God is Three in One and One in Three? Well, that’s the summary of this whole thing, isn’t it? The God Who created us didn’t just make everything and step away. He watched over us, He spoke to us, He taught us…and when we continued to mess things up rather than trust Him, He came to be WITH us. This is what makes all the difference. He became INCARNATE. He took on flesh. And He willingly subjected that flesh to pain, suffering, and death FOR US. Then, when He conquered death and rose again, He appeared to His disciples to show them His promise was fulfilled. He ascended to be with the Father, and then gave us His Holy Spirit. This is WHO our God is. How do we live as children of the Triune God? Knowing what He has done for us, knowing how much He loves us, what’s the answer to that question? We have been baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity, and we have been taught to observe all that Jesus commanded his followers. And let’s not forget that last promise of Jesus in today’s Gospel: “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” He is with us, and we are called to live into that promise. I pray that God reveals to each of us, to all of us, some way for us to live that out, to share His Good News, and to help His presence to be felt in this fallen, sinful world. Be watchful and be ready, but know that He is with you!

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.