We go from one of the most positively emotional and fun days on the church calendar to perhaps the most theological and cerebral concepts in the history of Christendom. Easter is a high point, Christmas a high point, Palm Sunday is a high point, Pentecost is a high point. Trinity? Not so much.
But it is, in fact, the crucial affirmation of orthodox Christianity, the central doctrine that distinguishes us from other world religions, especially the other Abrahmic religions, Islam and Judaism.
The doctrine of the Trinity, that God is one being in three persons, arose from experience of God in three kinda different ways. From our perspective centuries later, it is an experience of history, too, as we see the millennia described by the Hebrew Scripture and running from the nomadic clan of Abraham in the desert through the Exodus and settlement of the trans-Jordan to become Israel through the great kingdoms of David and Solomon to the divided Israel and Judea through the occupation by Rome. Then we experience the life and ministry and life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, very clearly a person in a clear historical context, described and interpreted by the Gospel writers and approached by people of piety as God. Then, following the tale of Acts 2 about Pentecost, the long historical season of the early church through until today. Some like to identify the persons of the Trinity as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, other as Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, and a whole slew of variations. You just have to read hymn titles and books of human composure to see the range of ways humans appreciate God’s presence in our lives.
The trick, for the early church, was to take those experiences of God in God’s mysterious differences and uphold the belief that God is One and Only. The discussion (sometimes rancorous and schismatic and tinged with heresy) ended up in the Nicene Creed as the doctrine of the Trinity. God is One. God is Three. There are thousands of illustrations of how that can be described, but no theologian actually claims it can be “explained.”
So we live with a delicious tension that the One God is apprehended in Three Persons, that Three Persons are One Being, all a mystery. So we speak and sing and draw and paint pictures of the Trinity or symbols of it, and we love and are loved by the Triune God, whose presence we know even if we cannot fully explain it.
This week, wear triangles to celebrate the Trinity! Actually, Celtic triquetras are a lot more decorative than plain old triangles, if you have ’em.
So I invite you Sunday to worship “God in Three Persons, Blessed Trinity!”
In Christ,
David
And, yes, I messed up adding in prayers for Father’s Day
last Sunday! For the record, on my drive over I saw a firehouse with a
“Father’s Day Breakfast” on their signboard, and a lot of cars (probably
totally unrelated in retrospect) and kinda sorta panicked and added them in. Incorrectly, it turned out, as a large number
of people reminded me at refreshment time.
Mercifully, most of the reminders were sweet, although a couple of
people were startled and panicked in their turn. A couple of you made good fun of my
mistake. But to be sure, Sunday June 15
is, truly, actually, really Father’s Day.
I’ll try to check my calendar next year…!
Texts For Sunday Worship:
From the Hebrew Bible Genesis 1:1-2:4 (selected verses)
From the Epistles 2 Corinthians 13:11-13
From the Gospels Matthew 28:16-20
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