Trinity Sunday, June 11, 2006, “Series B”
Grace be unto you and peace, from God our Father and from our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Let us pray: Oh God, reveal yourself to us and give us the grace to love and to follow the revelation that we receive. Keep us open minded, always ready to be surprised by you, ever willing to grow in our ability to understand you on a deeper level, and above all, inspired to serve you and proclaim your name to those around us. Cultivate in us an eagerness to be in relationship with you in all of your demanding, glorious otherness. We pray this in your Holy name, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
A man was seen in church only one Sunday a year. No, it was not Easter. Nor was it on Christmas Eve. But year after year, he came to worship on Trinity Sunday. Finally, one of the lay leaders of the congregation, who happened to notice this man selected this particular Sunday to attend worship, had to ask, “Why is it that you only come to worship on Trinity Sunday?”
“Oh, that’s easy to explain,” the man said. “I like to come on this day so I can hear the preacher get all tangled up trying to explain the Trinity!
The great theologian, St. Augustine, came to a similar conclusion in the Fourth Century, after he had written over 800 pages, trying to explain the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Finally, he had to admit, that he could not understand it.
This is his story: “As he walked along the seashore one day, he saw a small boy playing with a seashell. The boy scooped a hole in the sand, filled the shell with water, and poured it into the hole. “What are you doing?” St. Augustine asked the boy. The boy replied, “I’m going to pour the sea into that hole.”
Then St. Augustine said to himself, “That is what I have been trying to do. Standing at the ocean of infinity, I have attempted to grasp it with my finite mind.” [Charles R. Leary, Mission Ready, C.S.S. Publishing Co., 1990]
Well, If you are one of those persons who came to worship this morning looking for me to give you a rational and objective description of the one God, who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I will admit up front that I can’t accomplish that task. I must agree with St. Augustine, that I can not define the infinite, with my finite mind.
Nevertheless, there are a few things that we can learn about our quest to understand God from our Gospel lesson for this morning. John tells us that there was another theologian, a Pharisee and leader of Jewish people who came to Jesus, seeking understanding. Nicodemus says to Jesus, “We know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do what you have done, apart from God.” Jesus answered him, saying, “No one can see the kingdom of God, without being born from above.
”Here, I believe Jesus gives us our first clue in trying to understand the mystery of God and his kingdom. Nicodemus comes to Jesus trying to understand Jesus from a rational, objective, human perspective. He is seeking to know Jesus, and his relationship to God from the perspective of an observer, from outside of a relationship with Christ.
The truth is, God is infinite, beyond the grasp of our finite minds. Oh, we may be able to objectively study nature, and form theories about how the universe came into existence, but when it comes to understanding God, it is beyond the scope of human reason! After all, if our finite minds could understand the infinite, from an objective point of view, then we would equal to, if not superior to God.
But that does not mean that we cannot know God! I believe that what Jesus is saying in his conversation with Nicodemus, is that if we truly want to know God, and experience his kingdom, it can only happen as we enter into a relationship with God. True knowledge of God can not be obtained from an objective distance, as if we were studying science, but only through subjective, intimate knowledge, which comes to us as God embraces us and adopts us into his family.
Almost every one of you know Josie. My wife has done a lot to enhance our ministry and support me as your pastor. But I don’t think you know her quite as well as I do. You have observed her in many activities of the church, even entered into a relationship with her, but the intimacy that Josie and I share in the quiet of our home, enables us to know each other more personally. Of course, Josie told me that if I went much further with this illustration, she could and would tell a few stories of her own. But I think the point has been made.
Thus, if we want to know God, we need to be open to the power of God’s Spirit, which we receive through our baptism, to reveal himself to us. Whether we were baptized as an infant, or baptized as an adult, it is God’s Spirit that calls us into a relationship with himself, and with his church here on earth.
There is little doubt that Jesus’ words, as recorded by John, refer to our baptism as the entry point of our relationship with God. Jesus says, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God [or even come to know God] without being born of water and the Spirit.” Thus, it is through our baptism that we receive new birth, become a member of Christ’s church, and are empowered by God’s Spirit to grow in our understanding of God.
The truth is, the Spirit of God not only works in us as individuals to know God’s identity, but it also works through the church, to uplift and proclaim the saving grace of God through Jesus the Christ. For the kingdom of God is in reality, a community in which persons are uplifted and inspired to understand that God revealed himself in Jesus, who not only proclaimed God’s word with the authority of a prophet, but who also gave his life in atonement for our sins.
As Paul says in his letter to the Romans, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus, were baptized into his death? Therefore, we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”
This is what Jesus tried to explain to Nicodemus, that night when he came to him, seeking to know who he was, as an objective observer and a scholar of theology. But at this point in his life, Nicodemus could not understand what Jesus meant, when he said, “You must be born anew by water and the Spirit,” or “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”
We know what that means, as a result of our baptism and participation in Christ’s church. We know, because, through the power of God’s Spirit at work in the church, we have come to experience the significance of our Lord’s death as atonement for our sins.
But in all fairness to Nicodemus, who is not mentioned in the rest of John’s Gospel until after our Lord’s crucifixion, joins Joseph of Arimathea, whom John tells us was a secret disciple of Jesus, in removing his body from the cross, and burring him in Joseph’s tomb. The implication is, that through his encounter with Jesus that night, he continued to seek to know the true identity of Jesus the Christ, the Son of God. Thus, Nicodemus should be and inspiration to us all, as we seek to deepen our faith in our understanding of God.
Finally, our lesson tells us that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life.” This says to me that although God the Father has given us his commandments to order our lives, he has done so out of his love for humanity. His commandments are not meant to restrict human life, but enrich it. For the bottom line is, God loves us, and will do whatever he can to embrace us as his own!
Even though I may not be able to explain the doctrine of the Trinity, any more adeptly than you can, I do believe it! I believe it because I have experienced it, through my years of belonging to Christ’s Church. God remains a mystery, but thanks be to God for what he has revealed to us, through the power of his Spirit.
Amen.
