Trinity sunday ba 2015

The Holy Trinity B 2015 On this festival, The Holy Trinity, we celebrate one of the great treasures and mysteries of the church — the Doctrine of The Holy Trinity. To begin with, one must confess that it is presumptuous on anyone’s part to have the audacity, the unmitigated gall, the naiveté, to presume to explain God, the Holy Trinity. No priest, no doctor of the church, no professor of theology or philosophy, no deacon, no bishop, cardinal, or pope can describe the indescribable, explain the unexplainable, nor comprehend the incomprehensible! When we begin to rationally approach the Trinity we can quickly become sidetracked, muddled and confused.

We all know confusion in this modern world as well as in our faith and life. The word “Trinity” never made it into the Old Testament nor in the gospels. It is not in any of Paul’s epistles. You’ll find it nowhere in the entire New Testament. Nonetheless, the roots, the trunk, the branches, the essence of the Trinity tree flowers and blooms throughout the Bible.

In the Great Commission, Jesus instructs his disciples to baptise “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). The apostle Paul underscores the reality of the Trinity in 2 Corinthians 13:13, with a blessing to the Corinthian church, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.”

The term “Trinity” was first used by Theophilus of Antioch around 80 AD. Then the doctrine itself was hammered out at the Council of Nicea in 325 AD and the Council of Constantinople in 381 AD. The Trinity has had a tough go. The Trinity has been body slammed, pile driven, kicked, assaulted, maligned, and ridiculed. The cults today have no interest or patience with the “trinity.” The Jehovah’s Witnesses hate it. The Mormons despise it. The Unification church attacks it. So the church developed three special guardians at the Councils of Nicea and Constantinople.

These three special guardians are big, burly, strong, no-nonsense characters. Their job is keep out riffraff, liars, and deceivers. Every time you and I worship they stand inside and outside the church without fail. One probably doesn’t notice them but they are supported by a more obvious set of symbols which stand in the stained glass windows, in the shape of windows, kneelers and carvings all around us. They are in our Invocation, Sentence, Gloria and Hymns.

Usually one of the special ones comes in and joins our worship. They have names. Their last name is Credo (I believe) from which we get the word “creed.” Their first names are Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian. They are good friends and loyal protectors of the Trinity.

They refuse to put up with any guff from the cults, the new agers, lazy Christians, or any distorters of orthodox Christianity. When sincere, but misled, cult members knock on your door, shove a tract in your face, and crow foolish things like, “Jesus is brother to the devil,” “Jesus was married and has children in heaven,” or “Jesus was a lesser god, a created being,” these burly security guards flex their muscles and shout, “No way!”

Because of this, on Holy Trinity Sunday and every Sunday, Christians respond to God’s grace by doing two important things. We recite the creeds and we enunciate the Trinity over and over again in our liturgy. Many churches have or had on the arch leading to the sanctuary “Holy, Holy, Holy.” Its our Churches dedication- there are Trinity symbols everywhere! If you look for them. !1

We sing “Joy To The World” and celebrate Christmas. We sing “Away In A Manger” and “O Little Town Of Bethlehem.” When we celebrate not only the birth but also the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus we add to our anthems, “My Song Is Love Unknown,” “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?” “There Is Green Hill Far Away” and “Jesus Christ Is Risen Today”. On Ascension and Pentecost we sing “Lord Enthroned in Heavenly Splendour” and “Come Down O Love Divine” and today on the Feast of the Holy Trinity: “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty. All thy works shall praise thy name, in earth and sky and sea; Holy, Holy, Holy! merciful and mighty, God in three persons, Blessed Trinity!”

As our Hymn resonates at the most basic level we all first experience God as creator. Most mornings I take a short walk to Yarra Park. As I walk and look at the Yarra River and the beautiful greenery I hear in my innermost self saying, “It is good.” “It is good” is the chorus in that great hymn of the creation story. I say those words, add “Lord,” and it becomes a prayer. It is a mantra spoken or chanted in cadences every four steps. You can do it, too.

Walk and pray in 4:4 time. “It is good, Lord.” I sniff the eucalyptus aroma floating through the air from the big gums in the middle of the street and I murmur, “It is good, Lord.” I see and hear the noisy lorikeets and rosellas in the trees swooping and resting on the branches and I whisper, “It is good, Lord.”

I recall the reports from astronomers who scan the stars, the planets, the galaxies and they tell us creation is still going on. Look around you. “The heavens,” the psalmist sang, “are telling the glory of God.” Psalm 8 chants, “When I consider the heavens, what is man?”

How big is the universe? On February 23, 1987, an astronomer observed with his naked eye the explosion of a distant supernova. It was a blast so powerful that it released as much energy in one second as our sun will release in ten billion years. I find this absolutely mindboggling, that this supernova exploded 170,000 years ago. It took that long for the light generated by that distant event, travelling almost six trillion miles a year to reach our watching astronomer. To top it off, the astronomers tell us that the universe is expanding.

Discoveries in 2006 and 2007 of new black holes and more exploding stars boggle our rational minds. For God, the Father creator, time and space is measured differently. Time is a convenience by which we measure things but surely not God. We would like to create God in our own image, manageable, manipulable, but God is the Divine Other. God is beyond our reason and comprehension. In the presence of God our creator — the works of God the Father, I am humbled. In awe I worship and whisper, “It is good, Lord.”

God is in the present tense through the Holy Spirit. In the Gospel of John chapter 16 it is written:, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth” (v. 13). The Holy Spirit is here in this place. The Holy Spirit is as close as your heartbeat and as enlivening as your breath. The Holy Spirit is at work in and through the Word of God, the Sacraments, and the people of God. When we feel our faith is fainting, the Holy Spirit gets to work making believers out of us. When we don’t feel generous with our talents, time and treasure the Holy Spirit is at work making stewards out of us. When we don’t feel very loving, the Holy Spirit is busy creating lovers out of us.

The words for us today are this: Take a walk. Go and experience God the creator, redeemer and sanctifier. Walk and pray in your nearby park, our Church Green or your backyard. See birds, trees, and plants. Take a Walk. See Jesus, the Saviour. He who loves you and saves you by his grace. Take a walk. Experience the holy wind, holy breath, holy power, and peace !2

from on high. Our God is an awesome God. Thanks to our three guardian friends whose eyes scan the horizon while we sing our doxologies to the Holy Trinity — God the creator, redeemer, and sanctifier. Amen.

Fr Robert Newton

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