Participation—Thoughts on a Trinity Sunday with reference to Genesis 1, 2 Cor 13 and Matthew 28

Another something I might have said had I been the preacher this morning…

Jesus is the Grace-giver according to “The Grace” we say to close many of our meetings and which comes from the last verse on 2 Corinthians—this morning’s Epistle: 

2 Corinthians 13:14 (ESV): The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you (us) all. 

Notice the Trinitarian formula: Father, Son and Holy Spirit—which is why this is one of the readings on Trinity Sunday. I’m going to leave the Holy Trinity to brainier folk than I. I believe it but I don’t quite understand it—one of those wonderful mysteries which contain more truth than I can quite get my tiny mind around or articulate. Today, I’d just like you to notice, in addition to the aforementioned Jesus, the Grace-giver, that God the Father is the lover and the Holy Spirit is the fellowship provider—or the communion-giver, depending on your Bible translation—with whom, in the love of the Father and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we get to participate according to what St Paul wrote in Philippians chapter 2, viz.…

Philippians 2:1–2 (ESV): So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit…

Participation here is the same Greek word translated as fellowship or communion in the 2 Corinthians reading. This kind of participation with the Spirit is to be desired and carried out so that—jumping ahead a few verses…

Philippians 2:10–12 (ESV): at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. 

Which is a good thing and is what the Father had in mind from the beginning when he got the whole thing going by setting his Spirit to hovering over the face of the waters in Genesis chapter 1, verse 2—part of the Old Testament lesson for today and the second verse in the whole Bible. The Holy Spirit has been the hovering, sweeping wind of love, grace, truth and resurrection, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, ever since. 

Jesus saying “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” in the last verse of Matthew’s gospel—our gospel lesson this morning—is just a continuation and intensification of that participation as the Holy Spirit brings orderly beauty, form and shape out of our present chaos. God’s creation continues to unfold in the new creations (2Cor5.17) we become in Jesus. The Holy Spirit fills our empty voids with the fullness of Jesus. The Holy Spirit illuminates our dark places with the light of Jesus so every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. 

And whenever we get stuck in the dark and formless voids of grief or addiction or disobedience or prayerlessness or broken relationships or sin—the Holy Spirit is The One who blows in to hover over our hearts, souls, minds and bodies bringing truth, order, light, resurrection life, power, ability and relief. This is the Holy Spirit with whom we have fellowship, communion and with whom we participate as he guides, comforts and moves us along. He will give Holy and Godly form to your formlessness. He will fill your emptiness with all the goodness and love of God. He will fill your dark corners with the light of the world—your Lord, Saviour, Spirit-breather and Master, Jesus.

Good Threes for Trinity Sunday—on the Occasion of Liam White's Baptism

 

When whippoorwills call and evening is nigh,

I hurry to my Blue Heaven.

A turn to the right, a little white light,

Will lead me to my Blue Heaven.

 

I'll see a smiling face, a fireplace, a cozy room,

A little nest that nestles where the roses bloom;

Just Jilly and me, and baby makes three,

We're happy in my Blue Heaven.

 

Just Jilly and me, and baby makes three.

 

Good things happen in threes. Here are three good threes for Trinity Sunday:

1. Two years ago July 16,2011: Clarke, Kimberly and God, all three, met here for the Celebration and Blessing of their Marriage.
2. Today: Clarke, Kimberley and Liam ( and baby makes three) are here for the Ministration of Holy Baptism. Wisdom!
3. In doing so, Clarke and Kimberly are bringing Liam to join a community which God; Father Son and Holy Spirit; ordained to be the crucible and home base in which to teach Liam to learn to live another good three; faith hope and love; the greatest of which, Paul wrote is love, which is what and who God is and also the greatest commandment.

And not only that but we're here today to celebrate and, as we prayed in our Collect of the Day, acknowledge the glory of the eternal, blessed and most Holy Trinity as, in the power of the divine majesty, we worship the Unity: one God in three Persons: the mysterious and best three of all. "Keep us steadfast in this faith," we prayed, "that we may evermore be defended from all adversities."

 

Which brings us back to Clarke and Kimberly and baby makes three. In a few moments we will pray that God, the Father, the first person of the Holy Trinity, will "grant to Liam that which by nature he cannot have; that Liam may be baptized with Water and the Holy Spirit," the Third Person of the Holy Trinity, "and received into Christ's," the Second Person of he Holy Trinity, "holy Church, and be made a living member of the same."

 

Clarke, Kimberly and Kristen, Liam's Godmother, will, on Liam's behalf and in his name, profess the Christian and Trinitarian faith and commit to defend Liam from all adversities, because bad things happen, too, sometimes in threes, by renouncing "the devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of the world, with all covetous desires of the same, and the sinful desires of the flesh." They will also "acknowledge the duty to keep God's holy will and commandments, walking steadfastly in the way of Christ," and promise to pray for him "and take care that he may learn and do all these things" too, including "all other things that a Christian ought to know and believe to his soul's health." Things like learning to pray and "take his part in public worship," "the Creed, the Ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer."

 

Why is all this so important? Because, just as Jesus said to his disciples in the first verse our Gospel this morning (John 16:12), he still has many things to say to Liam, but Liam is too young to hear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, Jesus said, he will do another three (among other) good things:

1. guide you into all the truth,
2. Glorify Jesus
3. Take what belongs to Jesus (which is all that the Father has v15) and declare it to you

What they are promising this morning, and the duties they are taking on will ensure that they maintain contact with God, the Three in One and One in Three, and that Liam will not only grow up to do the same, but come at last to live eternally in a heaven which is way more than just blue.

Posted with Blogsy

On Good Things Happening in Threes: a Trinity Sunday Homily

Three thinking in 2008: 

It's 1 o'clock in the morning and I can't get back to sleep because I haven't yet quite found what I'm to say in the morning and I've got the Trinity on my mind and who can make sense of that anyway? And because it's the middle of the night and I'd rather be asleep, I've got to fight off the demons of negative thoughts about life and anxieties about you and this building and the church in general so that I can, a) get back to sleep and, b) say something positive and helpful about the Trinity. 

The rest (no pun intended) here.

On the Trinity

Published in The Medicine Hat News yesterday:

For those of us in Calendar of the Church Year land, tomorrow is Trinity Sunday: an annual attempt to get our heads around one of the great mysteries of the Christian faith in worship.
How can there be One God in three persons and three persons in One God? I don't know. I feel like Paul must have felt when he wrote 1 Corinthians 13.12: “now I see in a mirror dimly…now I know in part; one day I shall know fully.”  

The word itself; Trinity, that is; doesn't appear in the Bible, yet the Bible makes many references to the idea. For example, Jesus himself says this: “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.” (Mt 28.19) Father, Son and Holy Spirit; the three persons of the Holy Trinity. Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, says it and Matthew records it to bless us and guide us. We are baptized with the Trinitarian formula that Jesus gave us. 

Although a mystery, like the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection, the Trinity is also a basic and fundamental tenet of our Christian faith.    

Here’s one way of thinking about the Trinity with reference to another three; Paul’s faith, hope and love in 1 Corinthians 13.  

Faith. "Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God," Jesus says in John 14. In other words, have faith in the Father. First person. 

Hope. Paul calls Christ Jesus "our hope" in 1 Timothy. Second person. 

Love. What God, the Holy Trinity, is. The greatest of Paul’s three. Which “has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5.5). Third person.  

CS Lewis wrote that, rather than simply rejecting Bible passages we don’t understand and mysterious truths like the Trinity, it is better to wait trusting that eventually a wiser person will come along who can explain it to us and God will appear “good and just and gracious in ways we never dreamed of!” Remember how the disciples’ hearts burned within them when Jesus opened the Scriptures to them on the road to Emmaus. Nothing is in the Bible by accident. 

Faith, hope and love. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Holy, holy, holy! God in Three Persons, Blessed Trinity! May you enjoy a richly mysterious and wonderful triple blessing in worship tomorrow.