The Holy Trinity
Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The Trinity is somewhat baffling, isn’t it? It is a complicated doctrine. The truth that God is one in three persons is difficult to get our logical heads wrapped around.
Which begs the question: Do we have to get our heads wrapped around the mystery of the trinity? Is that really necessary for our faith? Why do we have this burning desire to dissect and explain the trinity? It’s a mystery. Can we just learn to live with that?
Truthfully, much more important than understanding the trinity is experiencing the trinity. It is, after all, the experience of God that led the church to develop the doctrine of the Holy Trinity in the first place. So today, let’s look at our lessons and see what we can learn about experiencing the trinity.
The reading from Genesis tells us the story of the creation of the world. In the beginning, before God spoke his creative word, there was chaos. There was darkness and formless void. The Hebrew word used here is tohu-wa-bohu, a wonderful sound-painting of the condition of things at that time. This word, tohu-wa-bohu, actually made it into the German vernacular. It is the word my mother often applied to the state of my bedroom when I was a teenager. If you have a typical teenager in your life, you know what tohu-wa-bohu means and what the world was like when God set out to create.
The blessing of this creating God is the blessing of order. God orders the universe. Light and darkness are ordered into day and night. Water gets separated from land. Planets get set in their courses. The randomness of chaos is now under control, under God’s control.
Once the world is ordered, it is safe to bring life into it. Plants and animals arrive in God’s creation, and finally the human being, the pinnacle of creation, the one creature charged with keeping and protecting God’s world, so that order will be maintained and creation can keep flourishing.
This experience of God the creator is the first experience of God in the Bible. It is the most accessible experience of God day in and day out; all you have to do is look out the window at the beautiful summer scenery and you just want to sing God’s praises. It is also the easiest experience of God to explain to children: God made you and God made me and God made everything you see.
It is no wonder, then, that this experience of God should come first in our creeds: I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen. Every time we confess this, we thank the God who brought order to the universe and to our lives.
The disciples struggle with a different kind of chaos in our gospel lesson. They have been through an unsettling few days. They had entered Jerusalem barely a week ago with high hopes and expectations. They saw those hopes smashed when Jesus was arrested, crucified and buried. Then they were confused when the women told them about the empty tomb and about Jesus being alive and ready to meet them in Galilee. Now they have made the 70 mile trip to Galilee; I can only imagine what a difficult, uncertain, fearful walk that must have been for the disciples.
Good thing they did; because now Jesus is standing in front of them. At the feet of the risen Lord, they worship and they doubt. I bet now they are really confused. What is going on? What are they to do next? O how chaotic life has become for them.
Jesus brings order back into their lives. He does so first by assuring them that he is indeed risen and exalted: All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him. Second, he tells the disciples exactly what to do: Go and baptize. Go and make disciples. Now they have marching orders, they have a purpose, they have a mission. And third, Jesus assures them that whatever they do, wherever they are, whatever is happening to them, he will be with them. Always. Period.
It really is a shame that our creeds to not contain a line about this experience of God. The article about Jesus doesn’t say anything like this: “He gives our lives purpose and order by sending us into the world to baptize and teach the gospel.” Too bad.
Our third lesson today comes from the very end of Paul’s second letter to the congregation in Corinth. Now, that congregation was tohu-wa-bohu. All kinds of things were going wrong with those people. The reason we have more of Paul’s writings to this church than any other is that so much was going awry there. Paul wrote to put out fires, to settle conflicts, and to restore order and peace.
Those Corinthians fought over who had the best spiritual gifts, argued over celibacy, didn’t wait for one another with communion meals, and many more issues like this. In his letters, Paul addresses one problem after another. And when he is through with all those issues, he ends the letter with the words we read today: “Finally, beloved brothers and sisters, farewell. Put things in order. Listen to my appeal. Agree with one another. Live in peace; and the God of love will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”
I find it amazing that after all the trouble they have caused Paul, he still calls them brothers and sisters. And I find it amazing that with all the fighting going on, he still expects them to greet one another with the holy kiss. This is hope and faith and forgiveness born of the Holy Spirit. This is the gift of the Holy Spirit in action: to act with love and respect even if you don’t agree, to forgive past insults, to remain faithful to the gospel and the church, and to have hope for the future of a better community of faith.
Finding that faith and hope, sharing that kind of community – that is experiencing the Holy Spirit. The third article of the creed puts that experience into these words: “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.” This is how we experience the Holy Spirit: among God’s people, in the forgiveness of sins, and in the hope for salvation.
And that is why Paul is so adamant with the Corinthians that they should restore order to the congregation. Church needs to be orderly so that all the faithful can praise God the creator, can worship the risen Christ, and can be equipped by the Spirit for the mission of the gospel.
These experiences of God have led to the teaching about the trinity. The faithful have experienced God in three major ways: As God the Father who creates and loves the world; as the word made flesh Jesus Christ, who lived, died and rose to save us and give our lives purpose; and as the Holy Spirit who blesses us with faith and hope, forgiveness and community. In these three ways, God is active in the world and in our lives.
And in all three ways, God is working to bring order to the chaos in our lives. For chaos is constantly threatening the fragile peace of our existence.
For some, that chaos has been caused by the job market. Many have lost jobs or business during the pandemic and can’t find new work with decent wages. This throws them into a chaos of depression and debt and stress.
For some the chaos is caused by illness or death. When we or a loved one get seriously ill, all the order of our lives goes out the window. New schedules need to be developed, houses need to be rearranged, medical appointments rule our days, and worry eats away at our souls.
For some daily life feels like chaos because we are so terribly busy. With clubs meetings, soccer practices, dancing lessons, church activities, relatives to visit, houses to take care of, and longer and longer hours at work, just keeping schedules organized and arriving at the right place at the right time seems like an overwhelming challenge.
For some the chaos is a time of faith doubts. Questions assail us and call into question what we always believed to be true. That is very unsettling.
Chaos. It is there, in one shape or another, for almost every one of us. And for all of us who are in a time of chaos, the trinity is good news. For the trinity is hard at work to bring order and calm back into our lives.
The Trinity assures us that chaos time is not godless time. On the contrary, God is there in the midst of the chaos. When the world was tohu-wa-bohu, God’s spirit was sweeping over the waters; God was there. When the disciples gather at the feet of the risen Christ, they doubted; but Jesus loved and commissioned them anyway and promised to be with them until the end of the age. Christ is there when we doubt. And when the congregation in Corinth was thrown into chaos, the Holy Spirit was there among them, speaking to them through Paul’s letters and sustaining them as a congregation despite everything. Therefore, when chaos powers drag us down, we can be assured that God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, will still be with us.
The Trinity strengthens us through love. God is love, a love that is shared among Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; a love that is forever going forth from God to the world and its creatures. God created the universe lovingly and took delight in its beauty, and God is still involved in its care. Paul assures the Corinthians that God’s love is with them. In the risen Lord, the disciples encounter God’s love like never before. We are loved. When chaos powers threaten to overwhelm us, let us hold on to that: We are loved.
And the Trinity calls us into community, into sustaining relationships. God is a community of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and God calls us into community with God and with God’s people. Through the people of God, God’s love becomes real, God’s forgiveness is acted out, and God’s kingdom comes to life. With the love and support of our brothers and sisters in Christ, chaos can be overcome and we can find peace.
God loves you, and he wants you to experience that love in many different ways; that is why he revealed himself to us as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Let us accept the mystery of this revelation, and let us rejoice in the many blessings that come to us because God is three in one. Amen.