Holy Trinity A - II Cor 13.11-13 (Re)Aquainting Ourselves with God
"The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God,
and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all."
And also with you.
As churches begin a post pandemic procession toward "in person" meeting again, it would seem appropriate on the "Solemnity of the Holy Trinity" to recall what we're representing, or are up against, in the world of God and Humankind.
For those who, without thinking, responded "et cum spiritu tuo, and also with you," to the graceful greeting above, you have in my estimation come to the centrepiece of the significance of the Trinity of Divine Persons. In the greeting of the Sunday Liturgy, echoing the name spoken over us in Holy Baptism - the first Word of God spoken to us, I suppose, is His name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - God declares a person child of God, we are shown that the church and every member of the Church is a project of God's universal purpose. The Holy Trinity is not some arbitrary mystery or confusing puzzle to get past before knowing the real God, (unless that's the essence of your belief,) for God bets His name that His programme is your salvation. In Bible and the Creeds, (yes, all three,) the purpose is not the taking in or understanding of the current definition of every word or concept and the blazingly trivial debates one can invent around such words; the purpose is to see the picture of God at work (after all we consider scripture the Word of God, and the Creeds as correct expositions of them.)
Clive Staples Lewis, the English author and academician who had the distinction to die on the same day as President John Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 CE, used an analogy that if God had wanted to save dung beetles, he would have become one to do it, and so the mystery of incarnation is that God decided to become human, in the same way the Trinity's mystery isn't "Godsplaining" as far as what God is made of, it's about the will of God Who before the foundation of the world, decided to save you in the pew or wherever you come across these written words.
If there is going to be an analogy around the Trinity, it's likely not found in clovers, water as gas, solid, or liquid, or any of those other things with which we come up, it's more likely the God image species. Within the limits of linguistics, language, and the inadequacy of human cognition, let's take time to consider a particular routine conscious deed of a human being.
A particular thing we might do, say, get out of bed, might be conscious or not, remembered or forgotten; insignificant or setting off a cascade of world shattering events - whatever those might or might not be. It may well mark my psyche, shape my health and body, or embed itself in my soul.
Every action we might do mostly has an expected reaction. I could get out of bed in the morning, but that is no prediction or guarantee as to what will happen today.
However, getting out of bed may lead me to have certain expectations and hopes for the future.
I wake up with philosophies, confidences, anxieties, perhaps faith that I look to inform what is to come. While I may believe that I control all of that - LOL - it is quite possible that it is another force, known to me, (think spouse or parent) or a force unknown, (think vehicle at a high rate of speed.)
Further, the "surprise" in life may come not because on an expected other, but the other force who acts in a surprising way to us both.
We now to turn to a final concern of the action itself, say Harbaugh getting out of bed. It is probably the most routine of mornings when the previous day or hopes and expectations of this day going forward are not immediately important. It's either a thoroughly disinterested approach to life in the conscious sense I suppose, or is it a living in the moment?
"Let us make humanity in our image," said God, "to resemble us so that they may take charge of the sea, the sky, and the earth."
The human being is to resemble God in what he does,, given a caretaker role of the earth passing along the seasons, the time and the years, understanding the animals and birds and fish as representing events in their lives and well as our own. The prime dominioning role is as timekeeper, to invite creatures into the creation of God's gardener who can actually speak the name of God: YHWH, Father Son, and Spirit.
The human being and God from now on to the next days, or end of days, will have a dialogue with one another which turns to an ever stretching boundary exercise eventually a question of trust.. Our god is either the comfort of trusting in ourselves and our control mechanisms - or its' four word abbreviation, s-i-n-s, or the comfort of God's gospel through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit. The One we can trust says the Gospel is the One Who has died - endured the worst of our future - and been raised from the dead by the glory of His Father - God's sure and certain promise - in order that we might live a new life, not burdened by the power of sin, death, and devil - in other words, in the Holy Spirit. In our past's tragedies and triumphs, in the future's hopes and anxieties, we live the moment of faith not as an idle prediction but as a promised certainty worthy of trust.
"Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever." Our theme and scheme of worship that past sorrows and regrets, the anxieties and worries of the future that try to attempt to bring tomorrow to today, meet in this moment with the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation, which word and sacraments bring to us. In Luther's Small Catechism we hear being called, gathered, enlightened, and made holy in baptism that we may be one body with many members, one in the broken bread of the Holy Eucharist. In Word and Sacrament where Christ is present in the moment as we proclaim his death until he comes, we meet Jesus and meeting him meet the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit then sends us into the world in future, strong in faith, the only strength we have.
Faith is the powerful way to relate to God, the way God has designed it, revealing a Holy Trinity, Three in One and One in Three. Faith sends us to "subdue the world with service to one another and all creation, all the times and places that reflect the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit who has created us, redeemed us, and shapes us to live in a world that is a creation of a loving God.
This is the god that we know, but above all, the God Who seeks to know us. He is the One Who gave Himself for all the world. Faith invites you to look around and reacquaint yourself with God's just and merciful ways shown in our Lord Jesus Christ.
and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all."
And also with you.
As churches begin a post pandemic procession toward "in person" meeting again, it would seem appropriate on the "Solemnity of the Holy Trinity" to recall what we're representing, or are up against, in the world of God and Humankind.
For those who, without thinking, responded "et cum spiritu tuo, and also with you," to the graceful greeting above, you have in my estimation come to the centrepiece of the significance of the Trinity of Divine Persons. In the greeting of the Sunday Liturgy, echoing the name spoken over us in Holy Baptism - the first Word of God spoken to us, I suppose, is His name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - God declares a person child of God, we are shown that the church and every member of the Church is a project of God's universal purpose. The Holy Trinity is not some arbitrary mystery or confusing puzzle to get past before knowing the real God, (unless that's the essence of your belief,) for God bets His name that His programme is your salvation. In Bible and the Creeds, (yes, all three,) the purpose is not the taking in or understanding of the current definition of every word or concept and the blazingly trivial debates one can invent around such words; the purpose is to see the picture of God at work (after all we consider scripture the Word of God, and the Creeds as correct expositions of them.)
Clive Staples Lewis, the English author and academician who had the distinction to die on the same day as President John Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 CE, used an analogy that if God had wanted to save dung beetles, he would have become one to do it, and so the mystery of incarnation is that God decided to become human, in the same way the Trinity's mystery isn't "Godsplaining" as far as what God is made of, it's about the will of God Who before the foundation of the world, decided to save you in the pew or wherever you come across these written words.
If there is going to be an analogy around the Trinity, it's likely not found in clovers, water as gas, solid, or liquid, or any of those other things with which we come up, it's more likely the God image species. Within the limits of linguistics, language, and the inadequacy of human cognition, let's take time to consider a particular routine conscious deed of a human being.
A particular thing we might do, say, get out of bed, might be conscious or not, remembered or forgotten; insignificant or setting off a cascade of world shattering events - whatever those might or might not be. It may well mark my psyche, shape my health and body, or embed itself in my soul.
Every action we might do mostly has an expected reaction. I could get out of bed in the morning, but that is no prediction or guarantee as to what will happen today.
However, getting out of bed may lead me to have certain expectations and hopes for the future.
I wake up with philosophies, confidences, anxieties, perhaps faith that I look to inform what is to come. While I may believe that I control all of that - LOL - it is quite possible that it is another force, known to me, (think spouse or parent) or a force unknown, (think vehicle at a high rate of speed.)
Further, the "surprise" in life may come not because on an expected other, but the other force who acts in a surprising way to us both.
We now to turn to a final concern of the action itself, say Harbaugh getting out of bed. It is probably the most routine of mornings when the previous day or hopes and expectations of this day going forward are not immediately important. It's either a thoroughly disinterested approach to life in the conscious sense I suppose, or is it a living in the moment?
"Let us make humanity in our image," said God, "to resemble us so that they may take charge of the sea, the sky, and the earth."
The human being is to resemble God in what he does,, given a caretaker role of the earth passing along the seasons, the time and the years, understanding the animals and birds and fish as representing events in their lives and well as our own. The prime dominioning role is as timekeeper, to invite creatures into the creation of God's gardener who can actually speak the name of God: YHWH, Father Son, and Spirit.
The human being and God from now on to the next days, or end of days, will have a dialogue with one another which turns to an ever stretching boundary exercise eventually a question of trust.. Our god is either the comfort of trusting in ourselves and our control mechanisms - or its' four word abbreviation, s-i-n-s, or the comfort of God's gospel through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit. The One we can trust says the Gospel is the One Who has died - endured the worst of our future - and been raised from the dead by the glory of His Father - God's sure and certain promise - in order that we might live a new life, not burdened by the power of sin, death, and devil - in other words, in the Holy Spirit. In our past's tragedies and triumphs, in the future's hopes and anxieties, we live the moment of faith not as an idle prediction but as a promised certainty worthy of trust.
"Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever." Our theme and scheme of worship that past sorrows and regrets, the anxieties and worries of the future that try to attempt to bring tomorrow to today, meet in this moment with the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation, which word and sacraments bring to us. In Luther's Small Catechism we hear being called, gathered, enlightened, and made holy in baptism that we may be one body with many members, one in the broken bread of the Holy Eucharist. In Word and Sacrament where Christ is present in the moment as we proclaim his death until he comes, we meet Jesus and meeting him meet the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit then sends us into the world in future, strong in faith, the only strength we have.
Faith is the powerful way to relate to God, the way God has designed it, revealing a Holy Trinity, Three in One and One in Three. Faith sends us to "subdue the world with service to one another and all creation, all the times and places that reflect the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit who has created us, redeemed us, and shapes us to live in a world that is a creation of a loving God.
This is the god that we know, but above all, the God Who seeks to know us. He is the One Who gave Himself for all the world. Faith invites you to look around and reacquaint yourself with God's just and merciful ways shown in our Lord Jesus Christ.
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