Three-In-One

I am going to take a chance today and preach on a subject I have never preached on here at Silver Spring Church, a subject which I am afraid may lose you from the very first word: The Trinity. Most people have never actually heard a sermon on the Trinity. Today is Trinity Sunday in the lectionary cycle of readings for the church, but most of the time when we come to this day in the year, I hope that it will fall on Father’s Day or Balloon Sunday, so I can preach on families or children, or I just ignore the lectionary and find something else to preach on. I fear that I will see the “glaze” come over your eyes as soon as the word is mentioned.

But we just concluded a confirmation class and welcomed a new group of young people who confessed their faith before you. Central to that confession was the Apostle’s Creed, which is centered around the three persons of the Trinity: “I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth . . . I believe in Jesus Christ our Lord . . . I believe in the Holy Spirit.” And I had to explain to them just exactly what we mean when we talk about the Trinity. I think they got it. I think they understand, perhaps in ways we adults have lost. How can God be three in one? How can God be three persons?

First of all, we have to recognize that the word “trinity” is not in the Bible. Search your concordances, read the Bible the whole way through and you will not find it. But you will find many references to God that speak of the “Father” or the creator, the maker and sustainer of all things. You will, of course, hear the whole story of God in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God with us, the being of God who brings the love and salvation to the world. And you will hear much about God, the Holy Spirit, who moves within and among us, God who breathes on us and fills us, God who is present with us to comfort and heal, to strengthen and sustain, and to challenge and prod. It was natural then for the early church to realize that the Bible speaks of God in three ways, in three voices, in three persons. One God who comes to us in three ways.

But with that said, we must also confess that this concept of a “trinity” is ultimately and finally a mystery. I do not understand it. It is much easier and clearer to say, like the Muslims and the Jews, one God, undivided and indivisible. I have read many theological explanations of the Trinity from Athanasius, Augustine, and Aquinas, to Calvin, Barth and Brunner. They all make valiant attempts to explain the Trinity and to make a compelling case for this Christian understanding of God. But in the end, they all fail to make clear this mystery of faith. Explanations of the Trinity fail just as the many attempts to describe and explain God fail.

The Trinity is not a theological concept; it is not a philosophical idea. It cannot be explained. The Trinity is a relationship. The Trinity is the ways in which God is in relationship with us. It is the way God comes to us, the way God touches our lives, the ways God enters our hearts, the ways God speaks, moves and changes us. We cannot explain and contain God in words or ideas. We only know God as God comes to us. We only know God in relationship. Every reference or description of God is a description of a relationship, not God himself. God is just too big for us to comprehend. What we know is how God touches us. Relationship.

To speak of God the Father is to speak of the one out of whom we came, our holy parent, our creator, the one who gave us life and breath. The breadth and mystery of God is so much more than these few words (father, parent, mother, creator), but this is how we experience the eternal in our lives.

To speak of God in Jesus Christ, the only begotten son of God, we speak of God who came to us in human form, God who entered human existence, who felt all we feel, who experienced all we experience, who knows our life and loved us with infinite mercy and truth. The incarnational movement of God into physical existence may be so much more than words can describe, but in Jesus we have known, have felt, have experienced the face of God—God for us.

To speak of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost, we speak of the invisible, active, powerful moving presence of God right here and now in your life and in mine. God’s movement today in active and present ways in our world may be so much more than we will ever know or comprehend. But for us the Holy Spirit is God touching our lives here and now.

We experience this threefold nature of God all the time, sometimes separately, sometimes all at once. We experience God; we experience the Trinity. To me the Trinity is like my relationship to my parents. My father and mother gave me life. They are my creators, as it were. I am the result of their coming together as man and woman. I carry their DNA, their genetic history. My arms and legs, my face and hands, my eyes, my voice, my hair, are all a mix of my mother and father and the heritage they brought with them. I was not born from nothing, de novo. I was born out of them. And in as much as I am still alive, still growing and changing physically and mentally, they are still my creators today.

But in addition to my genetics, my parents also gave me themselves. They walked with me, taught me, and shared their lives with me. They were the models of humanity for me. They taught me how to be human. They loved me. And although they are both passed away now, their physical presence with me was everything.

And there is a sense in which they are with me still. The Spirit of my mother and father is real, teaching, leading, inspiring, even challenging and prodding. One set of parents, three ways of being with me.

And so it is with God, our creator, our ground of being, out of whom we live and move. God with us, the fully human Jesus of Nazareth, sharing our life, teaching us, modeling humanity for us, loving us, giving his life for us. And God the Holy Spirit, moving within us even now, ever alive, ever present, changing, healing, lifting, moving us.

In the Romans passage this morning, Paul teaches us that in as much as we are led by the Spirit of God, we are children of God. The Spirit moving within us calls forth our heritage as the children of God, the ones who have sprung from God. The Spirit makes that real for us. And as the reality sets in, we cry out to “Abba” which is Jesus’ word for Father, the intimate language of parentage. Every word of prayer speaks the relationships of the Trinity. To pray is to claim this mysterious three-in-one. It’s all there.

C. S. Lewis describes the Trinity that way. He says that when we pray, it is the Spirit that prompts us to pray in the first place, the Spirit groaning within. God is also the one to whom we pray, the one who made us, the one out of whom we came and to whom we will return. At the same time, standing right next to us is Christ, the human who was God, who is helping us to pray and who is praying for us. God is the goal of our prayer, God is inside us, pushing us on, and God is the road or bridge through whom we pray. (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity)

I can’t explain the Trinity. I can’t describe it. I can’t contain it. Finally, the Trinity is all about God reaching out to you and to me. It is about God shaping us from the dust of the earth and breathing life into our form, Spirit into our souls. It’s about God taking on flesh and blood, walking into our lives, healing our spirits, lifting us out of death and holding us into eternal life. It is about the divine wind blowing through us like tongues of fire, the Holy Spirit that doesn’t leave us alone, doesn’t abandon us, but is with us now and always. The Trinity is about you and me and God, face-to-face, flesh and bone, alive and breathing, always here, always now. Heavenly breath, passionate love, fiery presence. God with us.

Holy, holy, holy, God in three persons, blessed Trinity.