Trinity Sunday – 31 May 2015 – Year B
Grace to you and peace from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text for our meditation is written in the 3rd Chapter of
the Gospel according to St John: Verses 1 – 17 (as read)
Let us pray: Father, guide the words of my mouth and the meditation of
our hearts, that in your word of truth we may recognise your Triune presence in
your Gospel and take comfort and peace from it. In Jesus name we pray. Amen
How do you view your father? – I read an interesting article by an old
Pastor; “I was afraid of everyone's father, but my own. While my father was
gruff, with a deep voice and tattoos over his arms and chest, I wasn't afraid
of him like I was of my friends' fathers. Though they didn't have tattoos, and
weren't as gruff, they were strange to me.” – I can relate to that, probably
most of us can – my dad did not have tattoos, but he did have strong arms and
hands that could leave and imprint on my rear end, but it was always my mates
dads that had me bluffed.
Today is Trinity Sunday, the one time in the year when we look at the
mystery of God. Wisely we teach and speak of the Holy Trinity; we talk about
God as three Persons in one, a divine Being or Essence, about neither
confounding the persons nor dividing the essence. In this theological account,
most people’s eyes glaze a little and God seems a little strange, even a bit
scary. – Like someone else’s father: There’s not much comfort here. - Actually Trinity Sunday focuses on viewing God
correctly which I can truly assure you is very comforting.
How do you view God? Do you view God according to His absolute
sovereignty - God in all His power, all His majesty, all His glory? This is the
God Job's friend has in view when he says, "He
even charges His angels with error." This is the God Hebrews says is a
"consuming fire." This is
the God Paul says "dwells in light
unapproachable." This is the God John says no man has seen at any
time. This is the God people in the Old Testament feared to see lest they be
struck dead.
Is this your view of God? Do you view Him as the absolute Ruler having
the power to do anything He pleases with no need to explain? There is nothing
that He lacks the strength to do. If God wanted to He could extinguish the sun,
drain the oceans or even crush the whole universe. God is not bound, limited,
hemmed in by space, time, or the Laws of nature.
If you view God according to His majesty then you see Him as all
powerful, and you see Him as unaccountable. God has the right to do anything He
wants. This is the God who says to Moses, "I
will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have
compassion." This is the God Paul says no man has the right to
question. "The thing moulded will
not say to the moulder, 'Why did you make me like this?'" This is the
God whose judgements are unsearchable and whose ways are past finding out. - Is
your view of God as one who has absolute power and sovereignty over all things;
A God who hides Himself? You know, the Bible knows of such a God: Isaiah 45: "Truly, Thou art a God who hides
Himself, O God of Israel." Lamentations 3:44, "You have covered yourself with a cloud, so that no prayer can get
through." Psalm 10:1, "Why
do you hide yourself in times of trouble?" And Job laments, "O that I knew where I might find
Him, that I might come to His seat."
This is the view of a God of wrath who is hidden behind cyclones that come
swiftly bringing death and destruction to whole communities. This is the God
who witnesses earthquakes and other natural disasters that bring disease,
suffering, and sorrow. This is the God who in the inaccessible regions of His persona
allows high school graduates to drive to their death. This is the God who seems
to be missing when the phone call in the middle of the night begins with,
"I'm sorry..." This is the God who people look to for explanations in
regard to the seemingly pointless sufferings or tragedies of life. - Friends,
this take on God is very scary: A seemingly unapproachable God, dwelling at the
same time in thick darkness and blinding light. But why approach Him anyway?
Why pray to such a God? An all powerful God does whatever He wants. And an all
knowing God surely knows all my thoughts, so He knows what I want without me
saying a prayer, right? This God has the power to do whatever He wants and He
has the knowledge to know exactly what I want. So I'll just let Him do whatever
He pleases and not waste my breath praying.
Sadly this is the God of all
unbelievers and of many Christians on this Trinity Sunday. An unapproachable,
unknowable, yet all powerful God who's no different than the 400 Kg gorilla: -
Where does a 400 Kg gorilla sit? Anywhere he wants to! - What does an all-powerful, unapproachable
God do? Anything He wants to! But what has got so many of us confused is that
this is the God of the
Bible. The Bible does describe God as unapproachable and omnipotent. Carefully
read the Book of Revelation. God stays hidden in the Sanctuary with flashes of
lightening, peals of thunder, earthquakes, and hailstones coming out of it; In
the Old Testament, the glory of the Lord drives sinners out of the sanctuary
and leaves them cowering at the bottom of Mt. Sinai.
It is possible to view God as the absolute, almighty, sovereign God who
has no duty to pay attention to insignificant creatures like us, - it is
possible, but it's not wise. It's the same with the sun. It's possible
to view the sun in all of it's brilliance with the naked eye, but it's not
wise. Doing so leads to headaches, temporary blindness, and even eye damage. If
you really want to view the sun and be able to appreciate it in all it's glory,
you're going to have to view it through a lens that filters out the brightness
and the rays that are harmful to the naked eye.
So it is with the Triune God. If you wish to view Him rightly, to see
Him as He wills to be seen, we must view Him through the Gospel. The Gospel is
that God became a Man to keep all the laws of God in our place and to pay for
all of our sins against those laws. That this is the proper filter with which
to view God is upheld by the fact that for almost 1,500 years, on Trinity
Sunday the Church has been reading the John 3 Gospel reading that is the text
for this meditation.
Friends, this reading is our focus for Trinity Sunday. We could
have read any of the passages I referred to earlier about God in all His
unsearchable power and inscrutable decisions. But instead we read the Gospel
lesson that contains one of the first Bible verses every child or new Christian
learns: "For God so loved the world
that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting
life." - This, my friends is the view of God He wants
to show us. Here is God in all of His grace. Here is the God who loved the
world so very much that rather than see it perish He gave up His only begotten
Son to die on a cross. This is the God who cares for the dozens of birds you
see each day and clothes the thousands of flowers. This is the God who
Scripture says has your name engraved on the palms of His hands, counts the
hairs on your head and puts your tears in a bottle recording why each one fell.
This is the God who rescues dead branches from hell's fire and won't put out
even a dimly burning faith.
The God of the Gospel has done all things through the God/Man Jesus whom
He exalted to His right hand. Now God the Son, Jesus, reigns and rules there
over all things. He has all the absolute, sovereign power of God, but exercises
it through flesh and blood just like ours. We are reassured of this in Col 2: 9
- 10 “9For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily
form, 10and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head
over every power and authority.”
In the Holy Trinity, we have complete reassurance, because in the Holy
Trinity we have the fulfilment of the will of God to bring us back into a right
relationship with Him. In Jesus, we have a God who knows what it means to be
flesh and blood. As Psalm 103 says, "He
knows how we are formed and that we are but dust. And so as a father loves His
children so He loves us." Yes, it's in Jesus that wretched sinners can
boldly call God "Father," and not only "Father" but
"Abba' which means ‘Daddy’ (literally - the oldest and most important person
or thing). Yes, Lamentations may claim that God wraps Himself in clouds that
prayers cannot penetrate, but in Jesus, God says you can call on your Daddy
anytime. "Ask and you will be
answered; seek and you'll find; knock and it will be opened unto you," Jesus
says.
Yes, even though to Isaiah, God hides himself in darkness, Jesus
declares, "I'm the light of the
world everyone may follow me and never walk in darkness." Yes, the Old
Testament God is a consuming fire, but in Jesus the consuming fire became
tongues of fire by which He gifted His newborn Church with the Holy Spirit. Out
of God's sanctuary lightening, thunder, earthquakes and hail do come, but Hebrews assures us that
since Jesus is our High Priest who entered that sanctuary "by His own blood shed on the cross" we obtain eternal
redemption from the sanctuary.
John
14: 6 – 7 reveals to us the hidden God and how to access Him “6Jesus answered, "I am the
way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7If
you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know
him and have seen him." God wants to be known in Jesus. He wants to
reveal Himself there. That's why Jesus commanded children be permitted to come
to Him; that's why He called for the weak and heavy laden to come cast their
burdens on Him; that's why He called for those hungry and thirsty for spiritual
things to come to Him. He, Jesus of Nazareth, Son of the Virgin, is the place
on earth where God personally meets people and fulfils their needs. Jesus is
the Triune God's sanctuary on earth.
Viewing the Triune God according to the Gospel you will see the God who
is all Giver rather than One who is all power and majesty. In the Gospel, God
the Father gives us all creation; God the Son gives us eternal salvation from
sin, death, and the devil, and God the Spirit gives us all the sanctification,
that is, holiness needed to live in joy, peace, and hope here and in eternity.
This God we can rest in. We
can personally claim: All of Creation is mine in Him. The Father brings
up the sun just to shine on me. He sends the rain just to water my garden. He
scatters the stars in the heavens just so I can look up in awe. All of
redemption is mine in Him too. What sins do I have that the Son did not die
for? What guilt can be on my conscience that the Son did not already bear? What
commandment could be hanging over my head that the Son didn't already keep? And
all gifts of sanctification are mine too in Him. What hope is too big for the
Spirit not to give me? What joy is too exquisite for the Spirit not to share
with me? What turmoil is so great that the Spirit can't calm it with His peace
that passes all human understanding?
This, my friends is our God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; this is the
view the New Covenant brings of Him. Yes, God is sovereign, almighty,
inscrutable, and unsearchable. But if you try to view Him from this way you
won't find provision, comfort, or direction in life because you will find Him
hidden behind thunder, lightening, hail, and worse. But it's another story when
you view God as He reveals Himself in the Gospel. There you'll find Him always
willing to provide, comfort and direct sinners. There you find a Father who
provides even for the wicked, a Son who comforts even those heartbroken by
their sins, and a Spirit who directs even those who feel they are beyond
direction.
Friends, the sacrifice of our Saviour, His resurrection, the gracious
gift of the Holy Spirit at baptism means that we don't have to look at both the
Sovereign and the Gospel side of God. Both are
real, but it's only at the revealed side of God that we are to look.
Deuteronomy 29 says, "The secret
things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us."
When you try to look at the hidden, sovereign, majestic side of God, it's like
looking at someone else's father. When you look at God in Christ, God in the
Gospel, it's like looking at your own loving father. That's a comfort, a hope,
a joy. Amen
The love and peace of God the Father, Son
and Holy Spirit that is beyond all human understanding keep your hearts and
minds in Christ Jesus. Amen
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