THE TRIUNE GOD

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Some things are difficult to talk about. Love, for example. If someone asked you to define love and explain why you love someone, how would you go about it? If I had to explain my love for Christie? The dictionary defines love as "A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness."(1) I could not have put it better myself...or worse, for that matter. To be honest, no matter what I might say on the subject would be inadequate.

Here is another one: KISS. The dictionary says to kiss is "To touch or caress with the lips as an expression of affection, greeting, respect, or amorousness."(2) Yeah. But any definition is unsatisfactory. Words will never do a kiss justice.

Try one more. God. Hmm. Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer, All-powerful, Ever-present, Judge, Just, Merciful, Love, and on and on and on. Nothing is enough. You and I both know that anything we might say would be inadequate.

What brings the subject to mind are the familiar words of the traditional Trinitarian benediction which we heard in the lesson, a text chosen because on the liturgical calendar today is designated Trinity Sunday. That deserves note if for no other reason than that this is the only Sunday in the long church year that is set aside to focus on a doctrine. Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, and so on all commemorate historic events, and we can understand that, but a doctrine? And a confusing doctrine at that! Plus, as you Bible scholars well know, the word Trinity never once occurs in the pages of scripture. Why the big deal?

I will tell you why. The doctrine of the Trinity is the uniquely Christian answer to the question with which we wrestled a moment ago - What can we say when we want to talk about our God? Yes, it can be confusing, but it is worth the struggle. As someone (I don't remember who) said years ago, "If you try to understand the Trinity, you may just lose your mind; but if you ignore the Trinity, you may just lose your soul."

Background here. The doctrine of the Trinity did not spring unannounced from some ancient theological conclave. Rather, it was almost forced upon us as Christians grappled with apparently contradictory convictions.

For starters, the church believed that there is only ONE GOD. With the patriarchs of old the affirmation was shouted out: "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is ONE" (Deut. 6:4). The New Testament affirms, "There is no God but one" (I Cor. 8:4). We are freed from the superstition and fear of believing in all kinds of invisible powers and authorities. One God! Christians along with our Jewish ancestors are and always have been monotheists.

But then the church looked at Jesus. They saw him do God-like things. They heard him speak "as one with authority" (Matt. 7:29, etc.). They heard Jesus forgive sins. In fact, the devout Jews of the day were incensed at his behavior and accused him of blasphemy because he had claimed to do what only God could do. The church heard more: "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30): "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9). It soon became clear that, in a unique way, "In Christ we have to do with GOD...Christ is not just a man sent from God, or a prophet or an angel. When we meet this man (a REAL man!), we meet GOD - the LORD."(3) How can that be explained?

Add one more confusing element to the mix. The church knew the immensely powerful God who had created this world and everything in it; they knew Jesus whom they had come to worship as Immanuel - God with us. But they came to know God in one more way...as present with us as the indwelling power who sustains and undergirds and energizes us. God, the Holy Spirit. Wait a minute. The Bible acknowledges them all, and, in fact, in several places (such as our lesson), it mentions them together. Hmm.

So what do we have? Three Gods? No - we started off insisting there is only one. How about one big God and a couple of lesser ones? No, that means more than one again. How about one God who is revealed in three different ways - first as creator and law-giver, then as redeemer, and finally as sustainer? God would assume different roles or "modes" depending on what was needed at the moment. Sounds promising, but it leaves the dangerous possibility that someone might think of the good and loving God the Son coming to rescue poor you and me from the mean and angry God the Father who would like nothing better than to see us roast in the fires of Hell for all eternity. Not a good explanation.

So what then? The church did about all that it COULD do - it affirmed that, in a mysterious way, all three understandings of God ARE GOD. No way to separate any one part from another. One God who has three distinct ways of being God...in the traditional language, "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." As one writer has it,

If we want to know what the Father wills and does, then we have to look at what the Son wills and does; for the Father and the Son are one God. If we want to recognize the presence of the Holy Spirit in us and among us, we have to look at what the Father and the Son are like; for the Holy Spirit IS the Spirit of the Father and the Son, and any "spirit" which contradicts or ignores God the Father in Christ cannot possibly be the HOLY SPIRIT.(4)

Are you getting the message? If we want to know God, we will only become truly acquainted by meeting God as Father AND as Son AND as Holy Spirit.

Someone has suggested that the doctrine of the Trinity is rather like Einstein's theory of relativity - it is easy to say but impossible to comprehend. To be painfully honest, we do not even know if that is all there is to God. The Trinity is what God has chosen to reveal: it is only a glimpse.(5)

Fortunately, the glimpse we have offers us a great deal, and it helps answer the question about God with which we wrestled at the beginning of all this. The God we worship is the all-powerful maker of the universe. This same God is concerned not just with the whirling of the planets, but also with itsy-bitsy me and you, loving us so devotedly that scripture says even the hairs on our heads are numbered. And if we ever wondered about God's continued presence with us, think about that hair thing and realize that, for lots of us, that total keeps changing - God has to be here just to keep up .

The doctrine of the Trinity - a mystery. It was a mystery when the early church first put it into words and it has remained so ever since. And on this special day, you and I are invited to encounter one more mystery - the presence of our living, loving Lord in a morsel of bread and a sip of juice. How is that possible? I have no idea. I simply accept as one more way of experiencing "the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit."

Amen!

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