Sermon for Trinity Sunday: "Triune Paradox"

 + Trinity Sunday – June 12^th, 2022 +

Series C: Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31; Acts 2:14, 22-36; John 8:49-59

Beautiful Savior Lutheran

Milton, WA

 

 

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

 

Stay on the path. That’s one of the most basic rules of hiking. Those are also wise words for Trinity Sunday, a day when we celebrate one of the great paradoxes of the Christian faith.

 

“That we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, neither confusing the persons nor dividing the substance.” Not three gods but one God in essence. And yet not one Person but three Persons. Three in One and One in Three. 

 

Today is Holy Trinity Sunday, the day we celebrate the this great paradox and mystery of the Christian faith, namely, that God is both Three and One at the same time. Three Persons in One Divine Essence, one Divine Essence in three Persons. Strange? You bet it is. Understandable? Of course not. So we confess it. As we will in the Athanasian Creed. A summary of about four hundred years of the church struggling four hundred years of struggling to say it just the right way. 

 

And even then, we can only come to an approximation, as though looking through a dirty window pane. We can describe God using words like “person” and “being” and “essence” and “substance” but we can’t really explain God. How can something be both Three and One? 

 

No doubt you’ve heard many of the bad analogies of the Trinity. Some say the Trinity is like the sun in the sky; there’s the star, the light, and the heat. Sounds fine but it’s not. In fact, it’s the ancient heresy of Arianism, which taught that Christ and the Holy Spirit are creations of the Father and not one in nature with him, just like the heat and light are not the star itself but creations of the star.

 

Or, some say the Trinity is like water that has three different states: liquid, ice, and vapor. Sounds reasonable. Problem is the Father, Son, and Spirit are not states of God or modes of God’s existence, but distinct Persons with a distinct relationship to each other. The water analogy like many Trinitarian analogies, is just the ancient heresy of Modalism repackaged. God is not three distinct persons but reveals himself in three different forms.

 

And the list could go on. Safe to say, that when it comes to trying to solve the Triune Paradox, you’ll end up in one of two ditches. One is modalistic, which teaches that there’s one God, but three modes, or states, or forms he is present in. These errors deny the Trinitarian language of the Scriptures. 

 

The other ditch is tri-theism – three gods. This denies God’s oneness, or unity. It’s what Islam accuses Christianity of. Tritheism. They even call us tri-theists. If you lose the Persons, you will end up as either a modalist or a unitarian. If you lose the one Essence, you will wind up with three separate gods. 

 

The trick to all paradoxes, is like the basic rule of hiking: stay on the path. Confess what Scripture teaches. We worship three Persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in one Being or Essence called “God.” It’s as simple as that.

 

This Trinitarian paradox is revealed all over Scripture. From the opening verses of Genesis in which the Father speaks the Word as the Spirit hovers over the waters of the deep to the Revelation, in which the Lamb who was slain but lives is enthroned at the right hand of the Father and the Spirit flows like a river of life from Father and Son.

 

The Trinity appears in today’s OT reading from Proverbs. The Son is personified as Wisdom, begotten from all eternity, from before the beginning of the earth. 

 

The Trinity appears in today’s reading from Acts as well. Peter quotes the psalms. “The Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.” Jesus asked the crowds, paradoxically, “How can David’s son be David’s Lord?” And how can “the Lord” and “my Lord” talk to each other and sit next to each other?

 

The Trinity appears in today’s Gospel as well. Jesus is confronted with the paradox of who He is as the Son of God in the flesh. The religious types thought He was nuts. “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?” That’s another way of saying, “You’re nuts.” And anyone who claims to be the Son of God in the flesh is nuts or delusional or demon possessed or at least a Samaritan heretic. 

Here’s Jesus, a carpenter from Nazareth, claiming not simply to be the Messiah, the Christ. But also claiming that God Himself was His Father, that He was sent by the Father, that the Father glorifies Him with a glory not given to Abraham or to Moses or to any of the prophets.

 

Jesus even rubs it in a little bit by indicating that Father Abraham rejoiced by faith that he would see Jesus’ day. He acted as though He and Abraham were on a first name basis, which they were, and had seen each other, which they had. And then Jesus pushes the big button and flat out says it, “Before Abraham was, I am.” 

 

This doesn’t simply mean that Jesus is chronologically older than Abraham, but that Jesus is the I AM who Moses say in the burning bush, YHWH of the ineffable name, the LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who keeps covenant and shows mercy.

 

They understood exactly what Jesus was saying. They immediately took up stones to throw at Him. He claimed to be “I AM” in the flesh, an audacious claim. 

 

Trinity Sunday and the Trinitarian paradox centers on Jesus. The Father sends His Son to suffer, die on a cross, and rise from the dead. And then the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.

 

Luther was fond of saying that he knew no other God than the one who nurses at the breast of His virgin mother and who hands dead on the cross bearing the world’s sin. It’s tempting to speculate about God and come up with clever analogies and theories and alternative theologies. But that is nothing more than subtle idolatry in the end, fashioning gods for ourselves in our own image and likeness. God comes to us in the eternal Son. We know God in knowing Jesus. And we know no other God but this Jesus who suffers, dies, and rises, who sends His Spirit, who brings us to the Father.

 

The triune life of God is also our life in Holy Baptism. We are baptized into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. We live, move, and have our being within this Triunity, worshipping the Father in the Spirit and in the Truth who is Jesus, having God as our Father, Jesus as our brother, and the Spirit as our Advocate and Guide. We are loved by the Father in the Beloved Son who bears our humanity and are drawn by the Spirit.

 

It is God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – who keeps you on the path. Who leads, guides, saves you, and reveals himself in this great triune paradox that we might rejoice and confess…

 

Blessed be the Holy Trinity and the Undivided Unity. Let us give glory to Him because He has shown His mercy to us. 

 

A blessed Trinity Sunday to each of you…

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon for Pentecost Sunday: "The House that God Built"

 + Pentecost Sunday – June 5^th, 2022 +

Series C: Genesis 11:1-9; Acts 2:1-21; John 14:23-31

Beautiful Savior Lutheran

Milton, WA

 

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

 

Every house has a builder. Looking for American Prairie style? Frank Lloyd Wright is your man. Want sweeping lines and curves? Try Eero Saarinen who designed the St. Louis Arch and the Fort Wayne Seminary. 

 

Every house has a builder. So…think for a moment: what famous architect specializes in clay? That builder, of course, is God. And on this day of Pentecost we see that he builds much more than walls and roofs. By His Spirit, God builds you and the nations into the Church.

 

And in a way, this is what God has always done ever since the beginning. God is the greatest architect of all. Only He didn’t use AutoCad. God spoke creation into being. Let there be…and there was. And on the sixth day, God built our first parents by His Spirit. God makes his will known. God spoke. Let us make man in our image. Then God created, fashioned, formed. From the very clay he created, God fashioned man. He breathed life into the clay, and the man bore the image of God. The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. 

 

God also took a rib from this man and out of it he built a woman. And the man and woman delighted in each other. For they were bone of each other’s bone. And flesh of each other’s flesh. One with each other and one in fellowship with God. Eden was a garden, yes, but also a house that God built, along with Adam and Eve.

 

Sadly, however, we know what happens when God is not the builder, and when man tries to venture out on building his solo career of architecture in this fallen world. When man tries to build by himself, he builds for himself. Apart from God, what man builds always falls, and fails…sometimes catastrophically, as it did in Genesis 3, when everything God built and declared very good became corrupted, twisted, and warped in sin. That is what sin does, it touches and twists and taints everything we think, say, and do. 

 

That’s what happened in Genes 11 as well. You would think after Cain was banished for murdering Abel; and after the waters flooded the entire earth because of man’s wickedness, that sinful, fallen man would progressively improve. But in fact sinful, fallen man is only good at progressively making things worse. The Tower of Babel is a great example of man’s building skills. 

 

Man makes his confounded, sinful will known. Man speaks. “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens. Man even fashions the clay, attempting to imitate His divine architect and Creator. Man formed the clay into bricks. Brick upon brick. A tower, not like the Chrysler building, but more like an ancient ziggurat. Man’s poor, pathetic attempt at remaking the mountain paradise of God in Eden. Man formed the clay but it has no life. He cannot breathe life into it. Yet, he wants the clay to bear his name, his image. let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.” In the end, man is scattered. Confounded and confused. And all who call on the name of man – whether it was in Babel, or today – are scattered, yet man babbles on in our own self-serving ways.

And yet in spite of all that, God comes down for us just he did at Babel. In Genesis 11 he came down to see our inability to build. Our failure to create.

 

In the opening chapter of John’s Gospel we hear that God has come down again, this time in the clay of his own creation. The One who made man in His own image is made man for you, in order to redeem you and to restore you in God’s image once again.

 

It is this clay, the flesh and blood God-man, Jesus Christ, whom God uses to rebuild what we tore down so long ago. All of our babbeling, confused, chaotic, self-centered sinful ways are restored, reordered, redeemed, and rescued in Jesus’ death and resurrection. Christ crucified – He’s your cornerstone and builder. 

 

And so on this day of Pentecost we remember and rejoice that God not only sent down His Son to save us, but now through His Son Jesus, He also sends down the Holy Spirit. That’s why Peter quotes the prophet Joel at Pentecost, as the apostles heard the rushing wind, as the tongues of fire appeared on their heads, and as the people gathered heard the gospel in their own language. And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh.

 

At Pentecost God builds the Church by His Spirit. He does the same for you too. God takes our hardened hearts of stone, softens the hard-packed clay of our sinful hearts with baptismal water and breathes the breath of life in us sons of Adam and daughters of Eve. By His Spirit, God builds you into the Church. 

 

As God did in creation, so too, today, God speaks his saving will to you and all your sins are forgiven. As God once breathed the breath of life into Adam and he became a living human being, so too, he breathes the breath of His life-giving Spirit into you by water and the word. He places his saving name upon you as His Spirit descends. As God took a rib from the side of Adam and built his bride, Eve, so too, out of the pierced side of Christ crucified, our second Adam, God has fashioned and built you into His holy bride, the Church. The blood and water flow from the temple of his body into the font to regenerate and rescue you, into the chalice to save, sanctify, and satisfy you in the forgiveness of sins.

 

As God once scattered the nations at the Tower of Babel, now by His Spirit, God calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies you here in His Church, the house that God built. Here God builds you on the Rock of Christ crucified and risen, not the shifting sands of our sinful hearts. 

 

And by this same Holy Spirit, who was present at creation, who descended upon Jesus in the Jordan River, who was promised by Christ, and finally sent by Christ, and poured out upon the Church at Pentecost. By this same Spirit of God, God builds the nations into the Church. God speaks his will in every language, as we heard in Acts 2, and in Revelation, as we see all nations and tribes and languages around the throne of the Lamb. God uses us, his clay vessels to proclaim the saving Name of Jesus. That whoever calls on the name of the Lord Shall be saved.’

 

Every house has a builder, and the builder of the Church is God. That’s why we rejoice this Pentecost day. You are built on the rock of Christ crucified. Built by the Spirit for God’s own habitation. Built to last in Jesus. Built by God, by His Spirit, to be the Church. 

 

A blessed Pentecost Sunday to each of you…

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.