TRINITY SUNDAY - Year C - June 12, 2022
We believe in ONE God, the father – the Almighty! This is a revelation of God from the Old
Testament- God revealed himself as father.
Should we reject this image because of our flawed human experience? Some do. Is it right that we reject this image God has
given us? Certainly, our God is good,
and he loves us as a responsible and caring parent should.
God, desires to reveal his nature, yet any discussion about
God is naturally going to fall short of all he is, as he is God, and while we
can know some things about him, he is also beyond our full comprehension. God is also the Almighty and worthy of our
reverence.
We believe in God the Son.
Jesus himself, declares his divine nature – it is what had him
crucified, but what evidence is there for this?... other than numerous miracles
and rising from the dead? In Matthew 22 Jesus explores the question of the
nature of the Messiah by asking the people about the prophecy in the Psalm of
David. He asks; “..How then does David
in the Spirit call Him ‘Lord’? For he says: ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at
My right hand until I put Your enemies under Your feet.”’ So if David calls Him
‘Lord,’ how can He be David’s son?”… It
is a question no one answered as it implied that somehow this Messiah, though
the descendant of King David was also pre-existent and God.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the LORD, the giver of
life. Remember that the word for Spirit
is the same as breath. In Genesis 2:7 we
read; “then the Lord God formed the man
of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of
life, and the man became a living creature.….. ” The scriptures explain that before the fall,
mankind was “spiritually alive”, enjoying fellowship with God and sharing the
spirit life of God. A change occurred at
the time of the fall. Something died - and
we did eventually… like a battery that has
a light that lingers when disconnected from the power-source. Jesus came, redeemed us, and breathed on his
followers saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit”.
His followers then becoming spiritually alive – reconnected to the power
source. In the Gospel of John, it is described
as being Born Again, or born from above.
The Holy Spirit is the Lord, the giver of life – Spiritual life. The Holy Spirit didn’t just suddenly appear
in the New Testament. Throughout the Old
Testament, the Holy Spirit is mentioned many times and also the “Word of the
Lord” is a term that is spoken in such a way that it implies a kind of
personification.
We need to be very clear that there is just one God, but to
comprehend God is beyond our limited understanding. Yet in the blueprint of our DNA, it appears
that our creator, in whose image we are made, has enabled points of
understanding through our imaginings.
Many years ago, there was an advertisement where a single
Goddess couldn’t decide on what flavour ice-cream to have and so she separated
into three and had one of each. Superman
2 from back in the 80’s or 90’s, was a movie where Superman gave up his powers
out of love for Lois Lane and became fully human and was hurt and bled, until
he realized that he could do better for Lois and the rest of the human race by
taking up his power again. For me, these
show glimpses of our ability to, almost innately, know somethings about
God. But we always need to be aware that
our imaginings don’t go beyond that which God reveals to us, and wander into
error.
There are ways that we can ensure we don’t go into error and
the formulation of the Nicaean Creed is one designed for that purpose. But most importantly, to teach us, to
guide us, to comfort us - this is why God sent us the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is the key.
If we attend a university and learn all there is to know, there are so
many things we would forget and other things that we would miss. In our Gospel reading, Jesus explains that he
has so much more to tell the disciples, but he assures them that when the
Spirit of truth comes, he will guide them into all the truth. This is what the Holy Spirit does for us
also. What is important is that we understand that
God is greater than we can imagine. He
sent his son to redeem us and through the Holy Spirit he is with us always. Through the Holy Spirit we can sense the
deity of Christ and the truth of the trinity, but not necessarily explain it.
The Holy Spirit is more than a force. The Holy Spirit is the helper that God sends.
The Holy Spirit IS God. In the Old Testament, God appeared as a
glowing cloud to the Israelites as they crossed the Red Sea. Then we read about God dwelling in the temple
in Leviticus 16:2; “And the LORD said to Moses: "Tell your brother Aaron
not to enter freely into the Most Holy Place behind the veil in front of the
mercy seat on the ark, or else he will die, because I appear in the cloud above
the mercy seat.” What is cloud? Vapour and air…. Breath… spirit! Jesus gives himself to each of us. He breathes on each of us and says, “Receive
the Holy Spirit”!
The most common mis-conception that I come across from
children and even adults, is that Jesus is not God. There are many who think that Jesus was a
great man who taught great things. It is
super important that we understand that if Jesus was simply a great man, he
could not possibly have died to redeem us.
The letter to the Romans tells us we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ. We are
justified through faith and this is all only possible if Jesus is more than a
mere man. Our whole message is about our
God who became one of us – truly human – but he is our God who saved us. Our God who dwells in us. The Gospel is Good News only because of
this. God loved us so much that he sent
his son that we might have life – God the father sends. The Son is and the Spirit is the life giver.….
But even here we have the tension… God sent His son and yet the son is in the
father and they are one, and they are one with the Spirit.
Without the Holy Spirit teaching and convicting, we cannot
accept any of this truth. It is, to
others, utter foolishness, that the God of the universe would come to save his
creation. And others would simply say, “It
doesn’t make sense”. In human terms it
doesn’t. But God has knowledge and
wisdom and power that is beyond our human ways and beyond our natural comprehension. Only in our imaginings, with the mind of the
Holy Spirit can we glimpse the truth.
There are many who don’t believe, though some would say it
takes as much of a leap of faith to be an atheist as it does to be a Christian,
because there are many facts that can’t be denied which stand as evidence of an
intelligent creator. Recently there was
an episode of “Young Sheldon” on the television. Sheldon is an atheist and his mother a
southern Baptist, Bible believing full blown Christian. On one particular episode, Sheldon’s mother,
Mary, has a crisis of faith after a teenage girl from their church is killed in
a car accident. In the end Mary decides
that she doesn’t believe any more.
Sheldon can not bare this change in his mother and sits with her to
reflect. “Sheldon tries to convince
his mom that God exists by stating that only a creator of the universe can
adjust gravity so precisely that even 1% less would result in star and planets
dispersing off further away and 1% more would have caused sort of an implosion
into a ball. Mary appreciates her son’s
support but tells him that logic belongs to the brain while she’s having
trouble at the heart. To this Sheldon adds that there are 5 billion people on
this planet and she’s the perfect mom for him. What are the odds of that? This
innocent speech makes Mary tear up and she ends up hugging Sheldon and thanking
the Lord and him for fixing her.” (https://starrymag.com/young-sheldon-a-crisis-of-faith-and-octopus-aliens/ )
What we believe is important because it drives our
actions. As Christians who believe in
the Trinity, what do you think are the implications of this on our actions? What will our actions be to others if we
truly believe that we have a God who is diverse and unified, who himself gave
up his position and power to die as one of us, to save us? What will our action to others be if we truly
believe that God dwells in each of us by His Holy Spirit? You have the Spirit of God in you… and I have
the Spirit of God in me….. and He will
lead us into all truth. Jesus
said it, the Holy Spirit affirms it and we believe.
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