Sermon for Trinity Sunday, June 7, 2009
“ I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter. And immediately I was in the spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne ”
Prophets declare what they hear and priests offer sacrifices that their God transforms into healings, forgiveness, means of grace. We grope for Him. We read things. We hear sermons. We study His Word. We see crucifixes and icons. We pray to a God unseen. But what happens when our unseen God reveals Himself, when we unexpectedly see the unseen? Heaven is so far away, and we are so lowly and unprepared for the Presence, or so we might reason. Yet, on an appointed day, before a chosen witness, God peels back the heavens and shows Himself. A door is opened …
Abraham lived with idol worshipers, but one day he heard a voice. I don't know what convinced him to believe that voice, but it changed his direction and won God's approval, starting the Hebrew race and creating a people to whom God would come in the flesh. Jacob, fleeing from the outrage of his brother had a vision of a stair to heaven, on which angels came and departed. Moses drawn to a strange light burning in the wilderness found a bush aflame, yet not burning, from which came the Voice and the wonderful Name of God.
Again and again God opens the door from eternity into time, from heaven to earth, from perfection to fallenness, and shows Himself—who He is, what He wants, how He seeks to lead us back to Himself. Each time it's different, but every time it assuredly is the Lord. Isaiah saw God seated on a throne, elevated between seraphs with six wings, each calling out, “Holy, holy, holy” as we sang this morning. Three Holies, three divine Persons in our One God . Ezekiel saw wonderful and baffling things, a crystal sea, great beings with wheels that had eyes, all upon which was a sapphire throne and God, like a man in shape filled with fire and rainbow light. Daniel had visions and heard of Messiah, the Son of Man. God reached out to His people and showed Himself to them.
In the most dazzling vision of all, Revelation is St. John's most incredible series of visions of heaven. By this time Jesus had come, lived and died, risen again and was at the Father's right hand. He writes: “I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, … And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw … one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about with a golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead.” Rev 1:10-16 What St. John was about to see would shock him all the more. Jesus would take him to heaven, where God sat in His throne, and a great drama unfolded heralding the end of time. A door was opened, and man saw God.
The thought of man seeing God should astound you. Take a walk in space. You're an astronaut on the shuttle, and you get to work on the Hubble telescope, that sees as far as any manmade thing can see, and we have stood agape at what it shows of the immensity of our universe. No longer just stars in patterns and occasional nebulae, but clusters of galaxies, each with millions of stars, some actually colliding through others, pinwheels at unthinkable distances, impossible in size, detail, wonder, and beauty. Never before seen by the eye of any creature, we look upon the continuously created artwork of the Hand of the Living God. We faint at even His handiwork. Would we not faint were the uncreated God who lives forever, without beginning, without end, were to enter the Hubble's field of view and talk to you, little astronaut? It just may be that God is not invisible at all. He could just be too big to see. Reverse the Hubble's telescopic effect and what would be there if we saw it all at once?
Just what has God shown us about Himself when He has opened the sky from His side? First, He is . He told Moses, I AM THAT I AM . God is , and not like we are, for we are created. We once were not . He is eternal, timeless, existence. We first must believe this. Our creed begins the path of our faith: “I believe in One God, ” and that's essential, for Hebrews says, “without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” Heb 11:6 God is. That's a start.
Next, God made us . He is the “Maker of heaven and earth.” He made everything that is not Himself. Scientific assertions that the universe created itself fall to pieces when examined, even logically. No one can say where its matter and energy came from. And there is so much embedded information, a patterning, intricate and purposeful mechanisms in atoms and suns, amoebas and Amazon dwellers, there can't be a plausible explanation for it otherwise. God made all that is. There is a designer wherever there is a design.
Then we must study ourselves and compare ourselves with His design. Here we find a problem. We're broken . We're well made, but we're not doing well. We hurt each other, hurt ourselves. Something is wrong with us, and God is swift to show us, by the Law, by the Prophets, by the coming of His Son. And now the self-revelation of God breaks the sky open, as His Son becomes man and lives with us. It was a desperate plan, that God should be vulnerable in this way, and give evidence of God's true will and plan for us. The most powerful and jealous among us broken creatures would certainly kill Him. So that became part of the plan as well. Jesus Christ shows us the Father by living God's life before us and telling and doing only what His Father shows Him. We have two, Father and Son : now He shows us three : the Spirit .
The sky breaks again and God's eternal Spirit, the giver of life enters not only our world, but our beings. At our welcome, the Spirit sets up His home in us and begins the process of reclaiming us for God. The broken creature begins to mend as God Himself tells us from within us Who He is, what He wants, and where our path back to Him lies.
It comes to us that God is either three gods or One very interesting God with three distinct appearances or natures, or three actual Persons. It's important not to make a mistake here. There can only be One God. Yet this God is not simply One Person, but three in One . Rather than be repetitive, I'd like us to stand and recite the creed that you find in your bulletin today, the Athanasian Creed which so amply declares what we mean by Trinity …
Athanasian Creed
1. Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic faith;
2. Which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.
3. And the catholic faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity;
4. Neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance.
5. For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit.
6. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is all one, the glory equal, the majesty coeternal.
7. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Spirit.
8. The Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Spirit uncreated.
9. The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Spirit incomprehensible.
10. The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Spirit eternal.
11. And yet they are not three eternals but one eternal.
12. As also there are not three uncreated nor three incomprehensible, but one uncreated and one incomprehensible.
13. So likewise the Father is almighty, the Son almighty, and the Holy Spirit almighty.
14. And yet they are not three almighties, but one almighty.
15. So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God;
16. And yet they are not three Gods, but one God.
17. So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, and the Holy Spirit Lord;
18. And yet they are not three Lords but one Lord.
19. For like as we are compelled by the Christian verity to acknowledge every Person by himself to be God and Lord;
20. So are we forbidden by the catholic religion to say; There are three Gods or three Lords.
21. The Father is made of none, neither created nor begotten.
22. The Son is of the Father alone; not made nor created, but begotten.
23. The Holy Spirit is of the Father and of the Son; neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.
24. So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Spirit, not three Holy Spirits.
25. And in this Trinity none is afore or after another; none is greater or less than another.
26. But the whole three persons are coeternal, and coequal.
27. So that in all things, as aforesaid, the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity is to be worshipped.
28. He therefore that will be saved must thus think of the Trinity.
29. Furthermore it is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believe rightly the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
30. For the right faith is that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and man.
31. God of the substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds; and man of substance of His mother, born in the world.
32. Perfect God and perfect man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting.
33. Equal to the Father as touching His Godhead, and inferior to the Father as touching His manhood.
34. Who, although He is God and man, yet He is not two, but one Christ.
35. One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of that manhood into God.
36. One altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person.
37. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ;
38. Who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell, rose again the third day from the dead;
39. He ascended into heaven, He sits on the right hand of the Father, God, Almighty;
40. From thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
41. At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies;
42. and shall give account of their own works.
43. And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting and they that have done evil into everlasting fire.
44. This is the catholic faith, which except a man believe faithfully he cannot be saved.
Let me note a few things from that lengthy, but valuable statement of our faith. God is One, in Trinity of Persons who are not mixed with one another, but Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They share One Godhead , an uncreated, incomprehensible, eternal majesty . The distinctive qualities of each Person keep us from confusion, for “The Father is made of none, neither created nor begotten. The Son is of the Father alone; not made nor created, but begotten. The Holy Spirit is of the Father and of the Son; neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.” Beyond this, in the things Jesus told us and that we gleaned from other revelations, the Father is the initiator, the designer and the ultimate authority. Even the Son obeys Him. The Son is the perfect reflection of His Father's nature and loves the Father forever, and the Son, being the Word, is sent to create in His Father's Name. The Spirit, also loving the Father and Son, comes with life and all potential for creativity.
Get off the Hubble a minute and let's ask what this means to you and me. For certain ancients, this knowledge of Trinity was not required, for it would only baffle them and make room for error. Let's not make any errors ourselves. God has revealed Himself to us and He is both our source and our end. If we aren't with Him, we will certainly be judged as being against Him. That is not a good option, though many take it by default. We must do more than politely assent to the proposition of a divine Trinity . This wondrous God has revealed Himself to us for a powerful purpose. What is His purpose? You had better know this. You don't get off the planet alive without it. It's not hidden or secretly instructed. It's not reserved for the illuminati. It is an open book, but you must open your heart to it. What is God showing us that we need to take up and have for the rest of our days?
God is. God made you. You are fallen , sinful, unworthy of His kingdom and needing something you can't make, buy or become. The Father sent His Son to become a man , to show us how we are to get back to perfection. By faith in this Son of God, faith— living every day like it's your last, in the light of the Good News of Jesus Christ, faithful to every word and deed He gave His apostles —by this faith you are redeemed. Now the Holy Spirit must live in you , and as I said last week, you have to let Him have all of you. Then let Him do His work. He is powerful and He is pure. When He is done, you have to let Him use you . So much is missing from our world. The Church has been tongue tied while the world around us is farther lost than a man with a map in a strange country. Tongue tied no longer, we need to be witnesses of the true faith wherever we are.
The visions and prophecies unfold. We live in biblical times and the end of all things is nearer than when we first believed. High time to awaken . The Holy, undivided, almighty Trinity: our God has been revealed to you and you carry this truth into a ruined world filled with desperate people. Only you can be you, Saint – fill in your own name – to the sweet lost people around you. Go forth with God. Open a door. Let them see Him in you.
PFH+