Trinity Sunday

A sermon preached on Trinity Sunday in Church of the Resurrection Blarney on Sunday 26th May 2013

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be now and always acceptable in thy sight O Lord our strength and our redeemer. Amen

Today is a day when we celebrate God … who he is in all his fullness …

Celebrating Father, Son and Spirit and the relationship between the three  and in celebrating …

We remember

• The work of the Father in Creation,
• the work of the son in our redemption which he has won for us and the
• work of the Holy Spirit in our sustaining us in our lives today .

We celebrate also the dynamics which exist between them and the love which is at the very centre of the relationship between the three parts which overflows into creation.

In our readings today we see this work between the three is a work of love … it is dynamic and it flows out to the world

The father loves the son and the same love he has for the son is the love with which he loves the world.  And we (as people in the world ) are called to respond to that love with which he created the world and he created us.

The Epistle Reading

Romans 5: 1-5

By faith we have been made acceptable to God. And now, because of our Lord Jesus Christ, we live at peace  with God. 2 Christ has also introduced us to God’s undeserved kindness on which we take our stand. So we are happy, as we look forward to sharing in the glory of God. 3 But that’s not all! We gladly suffer] because we know that suffering helps us to endure. 4 And endurance builds character, which gives us a hope 5 that will never disappoint us. All of this happens because God has given us the Holy Spirit, who fills our hearts with his love.

Paul writing to the Romans…  we see that it is by faith we have been made acceptable to God … by faith we have the peace with God … its then we able to live at peace with God.

Those 2 words … at the beginning … BY FAITH  … For so many that step is difficult … we have questions, we have doubts, they put up all sorts of arguments  but there comes a time when the challenge has to be made.  

We see also that Christ has introduced us to the Father’s undeserved kindness on which Paul says the church takes its(our) stand – I wonder do we understand God’s amazing Glory.

But with all of this, and this is where we sometimes get things wrong …we sometime think that all will be rosy but we see that Paul is grounded … this life is one in which there will be suffering and difficulties. But this is where the Holy Spirit, the Sustainer, the advocate and the teacher comes in who as he describes will fill our hearts with his love.

In our Gospel reading today we see the dynamics which exist in the relationship once again is unique and upon which the gospel absolutely depends

12 I have much more to say to you, but right now it would be more than you could understand.13 The Spirit shows what is true and will come and guide you into the full truth. The Spirit doesn’t speak on his own. He will tell you only what he has heard from me, and he will let you know what is going to happen. 14 The Spirit will bring glory to me by taking my message and telling it to you.15 Everything that the Father has is mine. That is why I have said that the Spirit takes my message and tells it to you.

Let’s Trace it again

All that the father has is mine -  Jesus  says

Jesus proclaims that message

the Spirit takes Jesus’ message and tells it to you

Like we saw in the Romans Reading …  we see that the spirit is revealing the truth to the world … That Truth, as we trace it through John’s Gospel is the love of the father for creation and the relationship the father wants his creation to respond to the love that is shown

We see it in John 3:16 the well known verse

God so loved the world that he sent his son

We see that he also loves his son … 3:35

• The Dynamic of the father is always outwards love flowing to the son and to the world
• The Dynamic of the son again is always outward love flowing to the world and to the father
• The Spirit’s love is filling our hearts with the love of the father and the son

No other philosophy … or religion apart Christianity … proclaims this truth of the relationship in God at the heart  this is love, and grace together   …

During a British conference on comparative religions, experts from around the world debated what, if any, belief was unique to the Christian faith. They began eliminating possibilities.

Incarnation? Other religions had different versions of gods' appearing in human form. Resurrection? Again, other religions had accounts of return from death.

The debate went on for some time until C. S. Lewis wandered into the room. "What's the rumpus about?" he asked, and heard in reply that his colleagues were discussing Christianity's unique contribution among world religions. Lewis responded, "Oh, that's easy. It's grace."
After some discussion, those in the room had to agree. The notion of God's love coming to us free of charge, no strings attached, seems to go against every instinct of humanity.

The Buddhist eight-fold path, the Hindu doctrine of karma, the Jewish covenant, and the Muslim code of law -- each of these offers a way to earn approval. Only Christianity dares to make God's love unconditional.

Undeserved Kindness … Made possible through the relationship of the trinity … we can’t work our way, talk our way only by faith through grace.

• Thank God for the trinity
• Have a think about the freedom this gives
• The great news of relationship this is possible  

When we grasp this … and it does make sense … it’s a relationship right before the beginning of the world and will sustain the world beyond the grave.

This is why the church does what it does

This is why we invest in kingdom things so that the world may know the love of God

So to recap

Trinity is essential … the relationship … equal and eternal

Its unique …none other speaks of grace made possible through the relationship

It’s the heart of message we proclaim to the world

Sermon preached on Trinity Sunday

May I speak in the name of the Triune God ... Father Son and Spirit. Amen.

We have now reached about the mid-point of the Christian Year, which began way back in November with Advent, we have progressed through the major festivals Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter and Last Sunday we had Pentecost. Today gives us a chance to pause and reflect on God being God.

Today as we have heard is Trinity Sunday - is a time when we reflect upon the mystery and the uniqueness of the God we worship.

God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit -

St Patrick’s Breastplate describes trinity as

Three in one and one in three.

Yes it is a Christian Doctrine, A key piece of our theology

it shapes our worship, it is fundamental to our creeds and prayers, it impinges on how we know anything about God. It separates Christianity from any other religion, and it is a complicated theory but actually it lies at the heart of our faith.

Trinity ensures us that we cannot put God in a Box, we cannot describe him adequately, nor can we comprehend all that God is. We need the trinity to sum up all who God is and all that he does.

Christianity is full of paradoxes due to how God acted in the past and continues to act today as trinity. Christians proclaim God as Holy (set apart) yet through the incarnation his is accessible, God the father is creator yet through the son became created, God is all powerful yet is able to dwell in our hearts and lives.

Many Illustrations have been used over the years to describe the relations of the trinity one in three and three in one

St Patrick as we know used a shamrock, others I have heard include water, ice & steam, triangle. Artists over the years have tried to depict the trinity in various ways.

We must remember that the term “trinity” does not appear in the Bible but it comes out of studying scripture, from what Jesus said, from passages throughout the Old and New Testament. The Trinity is foundational to our understanding of who we worship.

We do not worship 3 gods - “Hear O israel the Lord your God is one”. Our creed says “We believe in ONE God” ,three persons.

To make sense of this it might be useful, instead of thinking about you as a person and me as a person of thinking of relationships. For example to my mum I am Son, to my sister I am Brother and to my gran I am Grandson. One person 3 relationships. This is of limited use.

However it does show us that there is one individual but various roles. At the end of the day the Holy Trinity is the deepest mutual relationship possible -

Great Christian Thinkers like Augustine have concluded is a mystery and the more I think about it I am quite content in allowing the relationship of Father, Son & Spirit to stay mystery as long as we know that the wholeness of God is more than the sum of its parts

Individually we know about God the Father what he did in creation, in loving us, of being the source of everything and still working in the world today

Individually we know about God the Son Incarnation, ministry, death resurrection & ascension

Individually we know about God the Holy Spirit, Gifts, empowerment

We know that they are all completely working together for the building up of the church and the fulfilment of all things. and also to say that it is essential that we do believe in the equality of the trinity - anything less and we are in danger of falling into false teaching and our faith will be skewed.

But let us turn to the Gospel passage this morning and see this relationship worked out - as examples are always good for demonstrating theories.

Our Gospel passage is one of the many, many examples of the Godhead working together in Scripture

Jesus is talking to his disciples and he is showing them the working out of the plans of the father

we see that Jesus is unconcerned that is earthly ministry is limited...

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. ¹³When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth;

he knows that once he has died, raised and ascended the Holy Spirit will come and will continue to guide.

God is a God who doesn’t teach us everything immediately, he is a God who is with us for the long haul. The life of the disciple is one of learning on the job, of trying things out, of allowing God to teach us as we go on living. None of us (i am pretty sure) know everything, none of us can say I don’t need to learn anymore.

In our lives we need to know the fathers love and care, we experience that love through the Holy Spirit, we learn through the Holy Spirit and see Jesus’ Life as an example of the three persons of the trinity together.

Impact of the trinity today

As we look around our parish everyday we see people who are hurting, people who have been bereaved, people who have questions, people who are facing uncertanties of life. I am sure that each person here can identify those known to them who are those everyday people.

The Triune God is the only God who can adequately speak into all of our lives. Into places of hurt, grief, despair as well as happiness and joy.

When the major themes and questions of life are thought about only God who is creator, redeemer, sanctifier come together does life have creativity and meaning. There is absolutely nothing more creative, nor is there any other philosophy which makes any sense compared to what trinity does in relationship.

Yes, at the end of the day it is a mystery as to how it all happens but actually when we see the creativity and the meaning produced when father son and spirit get together then we realise why we are worshipping father son and Holy Spirit.

Let us pray

Amen