Sunday, May 26, 2024

The First Sunday after Pentecost: Trinity Sunday (Year B)

Isaiah 6.1-8; Psalm 29 or Canticle 13; Romans 8.12-17; John 3.1-17

The Rev. Clint Brown

When it comes to explaining the Trinity, I think we all know that we can go as simple or as complex as we wish. There are, on the one hand, several formulas and images that tradition has passed down to us that can help our understanding, or you can dive into the depths with Augustine and Athanasius and all the other great thinkers. If you’re so inclined, you can wrestle for yourself with all the difficulties raised in a thousand hair-splitting ways, reliving the controversies that produced the Chalcedonian Definition and the Creeds, agonizing, for example, over the difference that a single letter “i” can make in deciding whether to speak of the homoousios or homoiousios within the internal life of God; and, before you know it, you might find your head spinning to such a degree that you might well say with Aquinas: “I can write no more. All that I have written seems like straw.” At some point in the writing of this sermon I, too, found myself standing at the brink, and – I think, wisely – I decided to pull back. So this morning, I think the way through the minefield will be to simply stick with the readings we have from Isaiah and Romans and John, for, each in their own way, offers us a portrait of the Trinity.

We begin with Isaiah. “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple” (Isaiah 6.1). And then the prophet goes on to describe a most awesome scene – earthquake, fire, and smoke – and above the din and swoosh of the seraphims’ wings, penetrating the thick and heavy atmosphere, the other-worldly creatures bellow in concert:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Heaven’s Armies!

His majestic splendor fills the entire earth!”

(Isaiah 6.3, NET translation)

Here is an image for you…of the awesome, the unknowable God, beyond all categories or powers of description, grand and cosmic, that aspect of God which to fully know would be for us unbearable – even, fatal. This is the “divine other” spoken of by the mystics, the mystērium tremendum et fascināns: the mystērium tremendum (“mystery that repels”), in which the dreadful, fearful, and overwhelming aspect of God prevails, and, at the same time, the mystērium fascinōsum (“mystery that attracts”), to which we humans are irresistibly drawn. As we discover God in other ways – more, shall we say, approachable ways – we must always remember that behind them all lies this disturbing, dreadful, unsettling image of the deity that we can never bring under our control, that will always remain “other,” reminding us of how small we are and how great is the mystery to which our religious feeling is directed.

And so it is with some relief that we turn to John, leaving behind, for now, the throne room of God, where, to stay any longer, might spell our complete undoing, to encounter God in a person – indeed, the second Person of the Trinity – the man Jesus of Nazareth. In this little vignette from John’s Gospel, we witness a fascinating exchange with a teacher of Israel named Nicodemus in which Jesus tries to make plain for him what is obscure and which includes what is, probably, the most famous verse of the Bible. But, for our purposes today, I only wish to point out that, at its most basic level, it is a conversation with none other than God, face to face. This, of course, is the great innovation of Christianity, the audacity to declare that God has once been one of us, a man who could be spoken to, who could walk beside you, who could laugh heartily at a good joke, who enjoyed a fine dinner every bit as much as you or me; that we have come to know and understand that this particular human was at the same time something more than human, one in substance and in stature with the God who had been revealed to Israel – “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father.” Though a man, Jesus was God…yet as a God-Man knowing our weaknesses, sharing our sufferings, partaking of our joys – above all, manifesting in his person what a human life fully alive to God looks like. Here is no far away God – impassive, imposing, unknowable. Here is God made approachable, fully us, now opening up for us the possibility of imitation. The God who is beyond all categories, all knowledge, all description has come down and become one of us, not to condemn us, not to point an accusing finger, but to save us (John 3.17), by showing us by the example of his life how we ought to live. He means for us to be like him.

And for that we turn to the third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, which is that aspect of God that represents God’s everlasting immanence, his “always-here-ness,” that testifies to the fact that behind what we see and touch, what we can observe and measure, permeating everything, there is a reality even more real than this one – the world of spirit.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. (Genesis 1.1-2)

The very first words of the Bible assert the truth that ever since the beginning the Spirit has been present – supporting, sustaining, energizing the universe, the invisible Hand of God making possible all that is visible. There has never been a time when the Spirit was absent; and, even now, the Spirit is present as God’s creative agency, re-creating us and the world. It is this same Spirit – this same power that holds galaxies in motion and sustains the universe – that makes it possible for us to participate in the working out of God’s purposes, here and now, and to be ourselves transformed. “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God” (Romans 8.14). Our destiny is a spiritual destiny because we are, ultimately, spiritual beings just as God is Spirit.

And so, you see, God is many things – Mystery that is far off, Savior that has come near, ever-present Sustainer undergirding everything and witnessing to our true nature – that is the great truth of the Trinity – multiple aspects by means of which God is made known. And yet, God is not many, but Unitary – Single – One – embracing and comprehending us and all that there is – that also is the great truth of the Trinity. The doctrine of the Trinity answers both the questions “Who?” and “How?” To the question, “Who?” the Christian answers “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” And to the question “How?” the Christian answers, “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” That is all we might ever be able to say, but that is enough. Let us pray.

We adore you, most Holy Trinity, we worship you, and thank you that you have revealed to us this glorious Mystery. Grant that we, persevering in this Faith, and loving you above all things, may see you and glorify you eternally, Whom we confess here, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one God in Three Persons, Blessed for evermore. Amen.