Three In One
Preacher: Marcia C. Wilkinson

Trinity Sunday, June 3, 2007

John 16:5-15

You and I know from experience that beneath simple answers lie even deeper questions.  Questions of life are meant to stimulate the mind and spirit so that we are drawn to experience the ‘aha’ moments--the great and little truths of life.  Today we celebrate Trinity Sunday, and one of our toughest challenges as Christians is to articulate the Godhead--three in One.  Why does God need three names, and inhabit three forms?  How can God be both three and one?  Is the Trinity necessary and relevant today?  How so?

We have inspired orthodox answers to these questions, by inspired people of faith throughout the ages yet, still there is more to the nature of God then can be spoken or understood.  We simply just don’t have the ability to comprehend and express God fully.  The prophet Isaiah shared what he experienced with God as did John the writer of Revelation.  Early church fathers labored in their faith for generations to give us solid doctrine for the church.  But even solid doctrine in and of itself  cannot completely satisfy the human mind, the heart, or the spirit.  Why? Because we have been created to live life, to experience God’s presence personally--firsthand, in relationship.

You and I were created and are meant to live in relationship with God--Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Three in One, One in three, are rich in their lively interplay, separate yet interdependent.  The trinity is before time and for all time.  The three bring Heaven and earth, and meet together.  Yes, revelation has been given, yet holy mystery is still present.  God is all of these.

There is a dynamic and mutual relationship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  N.T. Wright says, "Not only is their relationship mutual but God has opened up to reveal himself in the flesh, and by doing so invites all of us to share in God’s inner life" (Wright, Twelve Months of Sundays, p. 72). Trinity Sunday is, I believe, one of the most special times of the year for reflection about the breadth and depth and richness of who God is.  I believe that by reflecting on our Triune God--on the necessity of God’s design--we will not only be affirmed in our faith, but stimulated to move into a deeper relationship with Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

We live in a pluralistic society and many of our neighbors object to the doctrine of the Trinity because they believe we deny the oneness of God and actually believe in three gods, which is a contradiction.  Yet, our claim will always be:  there is but one God, not static but living and moving, re-creating and powerful to transform.

Wright takes us back to our Jewish heritage with the O.T. focus.  Deep inside classic Jewish monotheism there lies a powerful sense of movement, a rhythm of mutual relations within the very being of the one God--a give and take, a command and obey, a sense of love poured out and a love received.  In Scripture four ways stand out repeatedly:
God’s Spirit broods over the waters,
God’s Word goes forth to produce new life,
God’s Law guides his people,
God’s Presence/ God’s Glory dwells with them (Israel) in fiery cloud, in tabernacle and temple (Wright, ibid).

Notice how these four expressions of God--Spirit, Word, Law, Presence--move back and forth from metaphor and images to an awesome reality, from visions to actual happenings.  In Isaiah, God gives a prophetic voice to his messenger and at the same time gives the prophet Isaiah a vision of God.  Images of God’s robe fill the temple as the seraphs praise and give glory to God.  Within the vision, Isaiah realizes the reality of his own sin yet, the Lord of hosts still allows Isaiah to be in his presence.  After being cleansed by the seraph’s hot coal that is put to his lips as a sign of purification, the Lord then asks the question whom shall he send to do ministry.  The one forgiven, the one touched by God says, Isaiah, responds “send me.”  Reality and vision are present together.  Sinful man receives forgiveness and sees he is part of God’s vision for others.  The attributes of God allow us to speak simultaneously of God’s power and his intimacy, his unapproachable holiness and his self-giving love for us.

There is a fifth.  This is not an Episcopalian joke… Actually the fifth is better than any stereotype attributed to Episcopalians, and one we should claim.  The fifth way of knowing God is wisdom.  Wisdom was the first of God’s creation and with wisdom, God fashioned everything, especially humans.  To be truly human then is to embrace God’s wisdom, with God’s Spirit, Word, Law, Presence.

All of these attributes of God came to us in flesh and blood in the person of Jesus.  Jesus makes God known!  To believe in Jesus, to follow Him is to know His Father, and Holy Spirit.  They reflect each other.  By God’s own divine plan we cannot separate the trinity.

To say it another way, to be encountered by Jesus---to experience Jesus and his whole life story: his coming, his teachings and gifts of mercy and healing, his death and resurrection, his return to the Father and gift of the Spirit--is to come face to face with God, the Father, and the work of the Holy Spirit  All three stand together, from the beginning of time, through all time and beyond into eternity. 
This encounter with Jesus is what led the early Christians to affirm the threefold nature of the one God, an affirmation already implicit in the earlier experience of Israel (Virginia Seminary Journal, Synthesis, June 3, 2007).  So today is a day of affirmation.  We are who we are because of our Triune God.  The three natures, the three persons, are unified and cannot be separated.  “In the beginning was the glorious relationship:  Father, Son and Holy Spirit."

I experienced this truth again when Norman and I had two weeks of refreshment on beautiful Pawley’s Island.  In the view of the ocean, the changes in color morning noon and night, the birds hunting fish, the tides coming in and out, watching young surfers accept the challenge of holding their balance in the waves over and over again, and breathtaking sunsets that held promise for the night rest as another day ended, we encountered the creator.  Nature’s order of things told us again, "Someone has done this, Someone is here with us, and this is a gift--all this and more."

The best we can do as believing Christians is to describe our story---how we experience God and what it is like to be in the presence of God.  In a myriad of ways God speaks to us, comes to us.  Sometimes he comes as the judge to reminds us that the messes in our lives need his help and direction.  Sometimes God comes as a Shepherd and reaches down to find us and carry us in his arms.  Sometimes the Spirit hovers closely and quietly gives comfort in illness and grief.  Sometimes God is the teacher, or the servant, the challenger, the stranger, the lover of our souls, the refiner who burns away our sin and guilt.  However many ways, God is one.  There is no contradiction.

Our challenge this morning:  If we believe in the glory and majesty of God who created the world, and that God’s heaven and earth come together in living color, in the natural order; and, if we believe that God is also the source of supernatural mystery beyond what we can understand or articulate, then the question that faces us is:  “Have we experienced God personally in Christ as Savior?”

Do we understand that Jesus is God in the flesh and therefore the ways and attributes of God mentioned earlier (Spirit, Word, Law, Presence, Wisdom) earlier are the same ones found in Christ? And, if Christ is our Savior, and we follow Him, have we responded and accepted God’s Holy Spirit that is dynamic and transforming?  Jesus was anointed by God’s Spirit before he began his ministry, to empower him as the bearer of all God would give him to do on our behalf.  The Holy Spirit cannot be separated from the work of God and God’s Son.  And, so, we cannot function in the life of Christ without the Spirit to lead, guide, teach and bear life with us.

In conclusion, the Trinity is not a stagnant doctrine that tries to define God with rational thinking, but a living, moving, transforming relationship that brings reality and vision to all that we are and will be.  And in this real and holy relationship with God--Father, Son and Holy Spirit--we are taken into the awesome inner life of God.  It is in this inner life that we behold our triune God, in all his splendor and are able to sing God’s praise of glory.  It is in the inner life with God that we discover our true selves.  Amen.