Trinity Sunday. The day we set aside to talk about the most misunderstood part of Christianity. In seminary they tell aspiring preachers that the best way to approach the sermon for today is to take the day off. But that is not what I am going to do. For developing a framework to begin to understand the Trinity is important and will be of great value in your spiritual journey.
If you have a hard time getting your mind around the concept of one God in three parts, what we call the Trinity, you are far from alone. In fact, the church wrestled with this concept for hundreds of years after the resurrection. There were many theories, many opinions, and not a lot of agreement. The biggest question was; is Jesus the same as God or was he created by God? Clergy and scholars debated for years. Different bishops offered different guidance for their dioceses. It was a significant controversy.
The roman emperor Constantine finally convened a council of Bishops from all over the known world. In 325 they gathered in Nicaea to settle this controversy once and for all. After a great deal of debate, the bishops agreed nearly unanimously that while Jesus is called the son of God, he is in fact co-eternal with God and is not a later creation. This belief was codified in what we call today the Nicene Creed.
“We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.” This is the easy part. We acknowledge our belief in the divine creator, the God who created the world and each of us. Recall genesis 1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” God the father, the first part of the Trinity, is the creator of
everything.
The creed addresses the next part of the Trinity in this way. “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father. Through him all things were made.” Notice that this part is longer than the part describing the Father. Even
in 325, people had an instinctual understanding of God the creator, but the church wanted to be sure that people really understood the divinity of Jesus. So we have phrases like God from God, Light from Light to vividly demonstrate the divine status of Jesus.
Remember the opening of John’s gospel. “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. “The word is Jesus Christ. Jesus was with God at the beginning and has always been part of God. His coming to earth in mortal form was a later act, but that was not the creation of Jesus, for Jesus has always been. The creed affirms this,
reminding us that Jesus, the second part of the Trinity, is no less than God himself by saying “begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father.”
Ok, you say. That explains Jesus, but what about the Holy Spirit? How come the spirit didn’t appear until Pentecost? Surely that means the spirit is not equal to God. Sorry, that is not quite correct. Think about the next part of Genesis and the creation story. “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, darkness covered the face of the deep, while a
wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” Do you recall how Moses parted the waters of the Red Sea? God sent a strong wind that pushed the waters apart. The Hebrew word for wind is Ruach which also means spirit. The wind that swept over the waters at creation and parted the sea to free the Israelites was in fact, the Holy Spirit.
“We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son, he is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets.” The creed, affirmed at the council of Constantinople in 381, addresses the Holy Spirit in this way. The Holy Spirit, the advocate promised to us by Jesus, manifests itself in a
different way at Pentecost, but it has always been part of God and therefore part of the created world.
The three aspects of the Trinity have always existed. But can we be sure they are separate parts? Well, let us remember the day Jesus was baptized in the Jordan. As Jesus comes out of the water the heavens open and the Holy Spirit descends upon him like a dove. And God’s voice comes from heaven saying, “This is my son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
And here we see the intersection of all three images of God. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, each demonstrating their uniqueness, yet acting in concert to fulfill God’s purpose on earth.
We have trouble with the idea of the Trinity because they are unlike anything else in our experience. We tend to think of God as just like us, only bigger and better. And since we can’t be three people, we have a hard time comprehending that God can be. But what we need to remember is that, though we were created in God’s image, the reverse is decidedly not true.
So, we can’t think about God as being constrained by our human imitations. Just because we can’t be a triune being, does not prevent God from being one.
The trinity is God’s way of giving us everything we need to live our lives and to be one with Him. The prayer we use at baptism sums this up for us. “Heavenly Father, we thank you that by water and the Holy Spirit you have bestowed upon your servants the forgiveness of sin and have raised them to the new life of grace. Sustain them, O Lord, in your Holy Spirit. Give them
an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to love you, and the gift of joy and wonder in all your works.”
So on Trinity Sunday, we pause to reflect on the three parts of God; Father, Son and Spirit. As they did at the baptism of Jesus, each works together to equip us to be the people God wants us to be. For just as God asked of Isaiah “Whom shall I send”, he asks the same of each of us. So when God asks you, “Whom shall I send,” you can rest assured that God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit have given you all that you need so that you may answer, “Here I am; Send Me!”