Trinity Sunday B’24
26 May 2024
Rom. 8.12-17
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church
North Little Rock, Arkansas
The Rev. Carey Stone <+>
We bind unto ourselves today the strong name of the Trinity by invocation of the same, the Three in One, and One in Three. Of whom all nature has creation; Eternal Father, Spirit, Word. Praise to the Lord of our salvation; salvation is of Christ the Lord. Amen.
– From St. Patrick’s Breastplate -II Corinthians 13.14, BCP p.102
When listening to or reading the news and at the end of a particular news segment you will either hear or read some version of these words: “This is a developing story. Check back here for updates.” It’s the way for a news outlet to inform the public that the story is unfolding with the strong possibility that the details of the story will later be revised or that a verdict or an outcome is still pending. We will have to check back later to find out more. This could have been a helpful phrase to periodically insert throughout the Old and New Testaments, because it has been and continues to be, an ongoing story, with many twists and turns on the road of salvation.
Between Genesis and Revelation, a whole lot of changes as characters continue to enter the stage of salvation history. “This is a developing story. Check back here for updates.”
From creation to the origins of persons of faith through the patriarchs and matriarchs: Abraham and Sarah; Issac and Rebecca, Jacob and Rachel new strands are added. Through captivity, and exodus, from exile and restoration, by prophets foretelling God’s future acts in the coming of a Messiah, to the birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, then onto the early years of the Church and an opaque book of apocalypse (Revelation), salvation is being revealed. So, as the story has progressed, has God been getting smarter, or have we? I think we know that the answer, it’s not that God is learning and improving but we are. “This is a developing story. Check back here for updates.”
Today in the church is called Trinity Sunday and it’s the only day in the sacred calendar that commemorates a doctrine. Interestingly, the word Trinity which means “threefold” is nowhere to be found in scripture. The term was first used by Theophilus of Antioch in the year 180AD. Jesus went on the record in the Gospel of John (chap 16.12) and said this: 12 “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, for he will not speak on his own but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.” “This is a developing story. Check back here for updates.”
Although the Truth of the Trinity could be found throughout the Old and New Testaments, it would take the Church a couple of centuries, aided by the Holy Spirit, to be able put all the pieces together to formulate what we now call the “doctrine of the Holy Trinity.” The theological work took place at the councils of Nicaea in 325AD (where the Nicene Creed was developed) and the Council of Constantinople in 381. As they looked backward certain pieces of the puzzle started to crystallize.
Going back to Genesis we find these words:
“Now the earth was unformed and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters.” Gen. 1.2 Jewish Publication Society 1917 version.
And later in Genesis:
Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” Gen. 1.26, NRSV
Then this from First Samuel:
“Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brethren; and the spirit of the LORD came mightily upon David from that day forward.” – I Samuel 16.13 (Jewish Publication Society 1917)
What is this, I thought God was “One” but there is the mention of making humans in “our image” then the Spirit hovering over the formless void just prior to creation, and later coming mightily upon David when he anointed as God’s chosen ruler. “This is a developing story. Check back here for updates.”
One of the clearest declarations of the Trinity was made by Jesus himself in his “Great Commission” at the end of Matthew’s Gospel where he says:
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 28.19)
St. Paul’s letter to the Romans in our second lesson makes use of trinitarian language identifying each of the three persons: the Spirit, then naming God the Father, and finally Christ – all three. The three in one and the One in three. These three divine persons are coequal, coeternal, and consubstantial (meaning of the same substance). Each person within the Trinity has a role and exists as a separate entity, but they together make up one main entity.
The best and most concise thing I have found to encapsulate an infinite mystery of the Trinity is this: God For Us (the Father/The Mother/The Divine Parent/The God in whose image we have been made) God With Us (the Son who brought heaven down to earth in human form, who lived, taught, loved, and died to take away the sin of the world) God in Us (The Holy Spirit, the invisible God who’s everywhere, all the time, and dwells within us). God For Us- God With Us- God In Us!
Jesus is the Way; he is the way into the middle of the Holy Trinity. So dear friends, however you can imagine this with your mind, seeing Jesus open the door that lets you into the community that is God. Through the Holy Spirit we have the presence, the power and person of God, who longs for relationship with us. I shall never forget sitting on a beat up, second or third hand couch in an upstairs HUD apartment in Pine Bluff fresh out of college.
On the first night of my first time to live alone, I felt overwhelmed, and scared. Suddenly, while sitting on the couch I began to feel a warm presence that wasn’t a result of the thermostat in the room. This warm presence was so comforting I was almost afraid to breathe because I didn’t want to do anything to run that presence off. But I knew from that day forward that I would never be fully alone ever again. God had me surrounded and God has you surrounded too!
This is a developing story. Check back here for details.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with us all evermore. Amen