I wonder whether you could recall your experiences during the first few months or years when you started working and were a junior employee. Among those experiences, could you remember a few extra things you were expected to do outside your job description that people who had been around for some time were not expected to do? It may be that you were expected to work on the weekends, make morning and afternoon tea for the staff, run errands for the boss, or pick up his/her kids to and from school.
Although new employees are most likely to work within a strictly outlined job description and contract today, twenty-nine years ago, I was expected to do a few extra things when I was a newly ordained Deacon and then a Priest.
As a newbie, I was expected to do the home visits, take Holy Communion to the homes of the elderly who couldn’t attend church during Easter and Christmas, visit and take communion to Nursing homes, and also attend the funerals of non-church members. I did all of them with much joy and commitment and learned the skills to be a priest and a pastor.
Another thing I was also expected to do was to preach on Trinity Sunday for the first four years of my ministry.
Only later did I learn that I was expected to preach on Trinity Sunday, not only because I am a junior priest but also because preachers try to avoid preaching on the Trinity if possible.
When I was a lecturer at Trinity College Theological School, I knew of a few student pastors who would make strange excuses to avoid being sent to a local parish to preach on Trinity Sunday.
I think there are three reasons for this avoidance of preaching on Trinity Sunday:
First, there is an expectation that on Trinity Sunday, one must preach on the doctrine of the Trinity. That is the doctrine that in the unity of the Godhead, there are Three Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and these Three Persons are distinct from one another. The 4th century Church Father St Athanasius put it this way: “The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and yet there are not three Gods but one God.” According to St Athanasius, this belief is said to be the universal faith of the church, which everyone should believe faithfully if he or she is to be saved.
Many find it hard to work out the math and attempt to come up with examples we have all heard of the Trinity. For instance, the examples of the shamrock: one leaf, three branches; an egg: shell, egg white, and yolk; water: ice, steam, and liquid; a person: mind, body, and spirit; or man or woman: son, husband, and Father or daughter, wife, and mother.
Second, the doctrine of the Trinity was used to divide people into believers and heretics. The people who could not get their heads around it have been kicked out of the church.
Third, The doctrine of the Trinity is not taught in the Bible. There are things in the Bible that suggest that God might be understood as a trinity, but nothing attempts to explain it. The church came to define the Trinity about 200 years after Jesus. At that time, the explanation was not mathematical but an attempt to understand what God is like and how God relates to us.
So today, I want you to join me on a journey to understand—and deepen the understanding we already have gained in our Christian living—what God is like and how He relates to us.
To help us in our journey, I would like to use the icon of the Holy Trinity painted by the 14th-century Russian iconographer Andrei Rublev (pronounced “Rooblyohff”). Andrei was a monk at the Holy Trinity Monastery. Although we know that he is the iconographer behind the most famous icon of the Holy Trinity, we know only very few details of his life.
At this point of our journey, I would like you to have the cover page of this liturgy with the icon’s picture in front of you. The icon of the Holy Trinity is full of symbols that will help us understand it.
Before looking at the symbols in the icon, it must be said that this icon is based on the story in Genesis 18:1-15 where we read about the hospitality of Abraham to three angels. In that sense, this is the icon of The Hospitality of Abraham, but with Sarah and Abraham removed and other symbols altered to reflect the Trinity.
Here in this story, we see the revelation of the Trinity in the Old Testament in the simplest way. If you are to read the story, you will notice that he sometimes uses a singular tense when Abraham refers to the angels. That indicates that although there were three persons, they are One. Yet other times, he uses plural pronouns for the three angels. That is to say, that they are three distinct persons.
The main feature of the icon is the characters and positioning of the three angels, which Rublev interprets as God showing forth through the angelic figures. Take a close look from left to right. You will see each angelic figure bearing the same facial and body characteristics but with different postures and clothing.
The similarities and the complementary symmetry of the figures symbolise the unity and communion of the Godhead. The angels’ heads are tilted in deference to and in the love communication between the three. This is a beautiful expression of the life of the Trinity and tells us that there is no position of domination over each other within the Godhead. This also expresses their union without confusion, separation, or co-mingling.
Each figure carries a staff in their left hand, expressing their sovereignty and power.
The leftmost figure is the image of God the Father, who sits at the head of the table. His head tilts to the right, towards the other two figures. Compared to the other two figures, the features of God the Father are less detailed. This highlights that God the Father is a mystery unknowable to the human mind because we are so far away from him, his love and our true Home. The colours of God the Father’s clothes and face are paler and more translucent to highlight the same truth.
Moving to the middle, we see the angelic figure representing God the Son. God the Son is our Lord Jesus Christ. While he wears the same colours, we see this figure with the clearest detail and the brightest of the colours out of the three angels. This is to tell us that we only know the Mystery of God and the Holy Trinity through Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ, the mystery of God is completely revealed to us. That is why God the Son had to come to us, bring us closer to God, to his love and reconnect us with our Home.
This is why the Bible tells us that the mystery of God is Jesus Christ. St Paul said that his purpose is that we may be encouraged in heart and united in love so that we may have the full riches of complete understanding, so that we may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:2–3).
A “mystery” in the New Testament is something that had at one time been hidden but is now revealed to God’s people. Jesus spoke of “the mystery of the kingdom of God” (Mark 4:11), which he was revealing to his disciples at that point.
The mystery of God is the consummation of God’s plan to bring His kingdom in Christ to fulfilment. The kingdom had long been prophesied, but the how, when, and by whom was not clear until the time of Christ. It is in Christ that God has been manifested to all of mankind. As Jesus said, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).
Paul said he had been commissioned to preach “the word of God in its fullness—the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people” (Colossians 1:25–26). That is, through the apostles, we have been given the capstone of Scripture; their writings, all of which point to Christ, represent the final disclosure of God’s Word to humankind.
In the icon, Christ’s face is tilted towards the Father, to whom his eyes meet. However, he is also the foremost one facing us, the viewer. This represents Christ’s incarnated ministry to bring us into the Communion of the Holy Trinity. Our participation occurs through partaking in the sacraments of the church, which are Baptism, Reconciliation, Holy Communion, Confirmation, Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders, and Matrimony.
Sacraments are the outward expression of an inward grace given to us in Christ through God's love. That is why we cannot understand God apart from a personal relationship with His Son (Matthew 12:50; John 14:23; 2 John 1:6).
Behind the figure of God the Father is Abraham’s house. Abraham’s house in the icon represents where God the Father first chose to meet with His people, in the Tent of Meeting and then the Temple in Jerusalem, prefiguring the future church.
[Tent of Meeting (also known as the Tabernacle) was the structure built as a place of worship for the people of Israel during their 40-year wilderness journey after leaving Egypt (The design or pattern for this tent of Meeting was given to Moses by the Lord on Mount Sinai in Exodus 25—27)].
The fatted calf in the icon further expands on this symbolism. It represents the offering Abraham gave to the angels, the calf offered by the Father of the Prodigal Son, and the mystical Supper of Holy Communion.
We believe that Holy Communion is partaking in the real presence of the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ. Therefore, the angelic figure Himself is also shown in an invisible chalice. This chalice formed the spacing and angled positioned by the Father and the Holy Spirit. These chalice representations are central to the icon, which invites the viewer to partake of the Holy Mysteries, which we as Christians all received at our Baptism and fulfilled through a life made divine by grace.
Behind Christ is the image of a tree. This directly corresponds to the oaks of Mamre, under which Abraham entertained his three guests. It also represents the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden and the Tree of the Cross. He fulfilled his mission and redeemed humanity.
On the rightmost side is the angelic figure representing the Holy Spirit. He wears a green outer cloak, the liturgical colour representing life and growth. His details and colours are not as bright or visible as those of the Son but still more so than those of the Father. This symbolises the church's more visible work of the Holy Spirit since Pentecost.
While the head of this figure is tilted towards the Father and the Son, he gazes towards the empty space at the table—our space as viewers. This represents the mission of bringing people to God, which began at Pentecost.
God has revealed His complete Word to his saints (Colossians 1:26) who have “heard and learned” the gospel (John 6:45; cf. Romans 10:17 and John 3:16–18), and it is they alone who fathom “the glorious riches of this mystery” (Colossians 1:27). In its fullest sense, the “mystery of God” is God’s plan of salvation through Jesus. We would never have comprehended the way to eternal life without the coming of Jesus, His death and resurrection.
Behind the figure of the Holy Spirit is a mountain. This represents Mount Sinai and Tabor, where God made himself known. On Mount Sinai, God met with Moses, communicating the Law, and on Mount Tabor, God revealed the Glory of his Son and his future resurrection.
With the aid of the icon, I hope I have journeyed with you to deepen our knowledge of the Holy Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, one God in three persons.
God’s love is made known to us through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and continues to work among us in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, the church. Amen
