Trinity Sunday
Texts: Isaiah 6:1-8; Romans 8:12-17; John 3:1-17
Today is Trinity Sunday. What does it really mean to believe in God the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit?
A number of people were blindfolded and sent into a room to describe an object without seeing it. They were allowed to touch, taste, smell, and listen to this object. One person described it as warm, while another described it as cold. It was described as alive, but also dead. It was described as hairy, but also smooth. Whatever it was smelled clean, but also musky. It was described as sweet and salty, silent—yet thumping like a deep drum, soft and hard. All agreed it was a big object, so big that no one could adequately describe it or guess what it was.
It was a sleeping elephant in a large room. Each person had access to some part of the elephant, but no one could take in all of it. And so it is with God for us. We each have some understanding and experience of God, yet our fallen human nature is like the blindfold as we try to comprehend the fullness of God.
The Apostle Paul wrote that now, in this life, we see in a mirror dimly, but then, in the Kingdom of Heaven, we will see God face to face and know Him in his fullness.
Each of the lessons this morning reveals some aspect of the nature of God.
The first lesson is the call of Isaiah. Isaiah has direct interaction with God the Father. Isaiah calls him Lord, King, Lord of hosts. He knows he is in the presence of the Lord of all Creation. He is attended by seraphs, some kind of angels, in the haze of incense. The seraphs are singing of God’s holiness, “Holy, holy, holy….” Isaiah has been mysteriously transported to the throne of God for a special purpose.
In the presence of God, Isaiah acknowledges his sinfulness. “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
Then one of the seraphs touches Isaiah’s lips with a live coal taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph said, “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.” In the direct presence of God Isaiah is purified without being burned.
When God asks, “Whom shall we send, and who will go for us?” Isaiah immediately responds, “Here am I; send me!” Because he’s been forgiven, Isaiah is willing to go for God, to go tell other people about what God will do for them.
Isaiah does go on to become perhaps the most important prophet to the people of Israel, foretelling of the coming of the Messiah, the Son of God. This episode is a key turning point in the life of the people of Israel in their relationship with God. God the Father has direct interaction with one of them, and Isaiah is transformed and empowered to speak for God.
The second lesson is from Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Paul is describing the work of the Holy Spirit to draw people to the Son of God, to Jesus. The Holy Spirit leads people to want to know Jesus, to desire him. Paul writes, “When we cry ‘Abba! Father!’ it is the very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if in fact, we suffer with him so that we may be glorified with him.”
When the Spirit comes into a person he is led to live his life in the Spirit, and not according to the flesh any longing, according to the life of sin. He is adopted as a child of God, and becomes a brother of Christ. He is led to believe, and as a believer is loved by God the Father the way Jesus is loved by him. He takes the name ‘Christian’, and he walks with Jesus through life in this world. Christ will be with him in everything.
The Gospel lesson today is from John. It is a conversation Jesus is having with the Pharisee named Nicodemus. Nicodemus is drawn to Jesus, and to avoid being seen, he comes to Jesus at night. He has sensed God is somehow with Jesus, and he comes to find out more about this.
Jesus tells Nicodemus that no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the Holy Spirit. What is born of flesh is flesh, and what is born of spirit is spirit. Perhaps what Paul wrote in his letter came from this conversation Jesus had with Nicodemus, about the difference between life in the flesh and life in the Spirit.
Then Jesus describes the work of the Holy Spirit, “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” There will always remain something about the work of God that is mysterious. It is better for us to be quiet and to listen to the Holy Spirit. We cannot command the Spirit to do anything, but we might be able, if we are quiet enough to listen, to discern its presence and some of its work.
And finally in this conversation, Jesus gets to the point of who he really is, and why Nicodemus has been drawn to him. He is the one called the Son of Man, who has come from heaven to redeem humanity. Nicodemus’ questions have presented Jesus an opportunity to declare the truth about himself.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” This is who Jesus is and why he has come in the flesh.
God as the Trinity has always existed. This is revealed to us throughout all of scripture in many different ways, through the work of God among the people of Israel, through the impact of the Holy Spirit on the followers of Jesus, through the life, work, and teachings of Jesus himself. Each of the lessons this morning reflects some aspect of this reality.
Precisely how God is One and One is Three will continue to elude us. Many great and faithful theologians have struggled to explain it, and some things can be said with a degree of certainty. But the impact of this reality is to make us more humble in the mysterious presence of God. St. Anselm famously wrote of ‘faith seeking understanding’. We believe and we hope more and more to understand. Amen.
