Trinity Sunday, 2021
St. Paul’s Anglican Church
Rev. Stephen E. Stults
May 30, 2021
Consider two words today: spirit and doctrine. Why?
Today we celebrate one of the key mysteries of the orthodox Christian faith, the
Trinity. Today we contemplate the makeup
of the eternal Godhead itself. It is no
accident that we celebrate the coming of the Holy Ghost first, and then
contemplate the mystery of the Holy Trinity.
Does not the Holy Ghost lead us into greater knowledge of God, both
through the Holy Scriptures and through our prayerful interaction with Him?
Indeed.
The Trinity is one of the core beliefs of
orthodox Christians, as we affirm both the trinity in unity (three Persons, one
God) and the unity in trinity (One God in three Persons: Father, Son and
Holy Ghost.) One of the oldest beliefs in Christendom, it was developed and
agreed to by the Council of Nicaea in a.d. 325, during a Council of the whole
undivided Church. It is central to a Christian’s view of God and it is a key
indicator of a Christian’s “right thinking” about God. On the other hand, if a person will not or
cannot affirm the Trinity, they have defective Christology. Without the Trinity, they may believe
something, but it is not orthodox Christianity.
During our adult class on religious cults, we learned that every
major cult always denies or fails to affirm the Trinity. That is because
those groups have a problem with Christ’s divinity, or his humanity, or his
equality with the Father, or something. Virtually every heresy and error “boils
down” to a heretical view of Christ in some way or another.
Those who are not in the historic church or who
have abandoned the historic creeds tend to be especially vulnerable to Satanic
lies. It is interesting to note that after the Nicene Creed came into common
usage in the 4th century A.D., the spread of Arianism halted in its
advance across the Christian world. While Arianism had several different
“flavors”, it is basically the heresy that Christ is a created being and thus
not equal to God the Father as regarding his divinity. In short, according to the Arians, He was
born, not eternally begotten. The cry of the early Arians was, “There was a
time when Christ was not.”
Was the Creed of Nicaea important? Indeed. It
affirmed that Christians believe in One God, not three Gods, and that we
believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, not three Lords. We affirm that Christ is
the only-begotten Son of God, not born. Christ was begotten of His Father before
all worlds, thus destroying the rallying cry of the Arians. Furthermore, we affirm that Christ is begotten
of the Father. He is not made or
created, and He is indeed “of one substance with the Father,” in Greek,
homousious. Christ is God of God,
Light of Light, truly God of truly God. That is, Christ in his divinity is made of
the same “stuff”, if you will, as the Father.
Sometimes we just rattle these words off our tongues without really
considering what they mean.
The Creed goes on to affirm the other nature of
Christ, that of his humanity, which he received from his human mother, the
Blessed Virgin Mary. Thus, the other
half of the miracle is that Christ, the second member of the Trinity, took our
nature upon Himself to live and to die among us. Next, the Nicene Creed affirms the divinity of
the Holy Ghost, who is the Lord, the Giver of life. This is Him whom we worship and glorify with
God the Father and God the Son together.
Thus, in the Creed, we have a succinct statement of the Trinity in about
one or two paragraphs.
The reason I mention all this about the Trinity is
that it is the first lesson we encounter in this great season of the Church. Although
we cannot truly understand it until we arrive in Heaven, it is critical to we
Christians that we have the best understanding of the Holy Trinity that we can.
This principle of spiritual understanding occurs
very clearly in the Gospel for today from John 3. Here is Nicodemus, a Pharisee, and, as the
KJV terms it, “a ruler of the Jews” coming to Jesus by night to receive
instruction. We know that he was afraid
to associate openly with Jesus during the daylight hours, for fear of
jeopardizing his position in the community.
While it is easy to criticize him and the other Pharisees in general, I
believe that we should be cautious here.
We know that there were many Pharisees who believed on Jesus; several of
whom tried to save him from crucifixion.
In the mystery and majesty of God’s Mind, all of these played a role
somehow in our salvation, positively or negatively.
There is an interesting opening to the passage, namely when Nicodemus
attempts to use flattery with Jesus, saying to Him, “Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man
can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.”
Jesus will have none of it. He short circuits
Nicodemus by telling him that unless a man be born again, he will not see the
Kingdom of God. As one might expect, this
elicits a degree of scorn from the Pharisee, who uses a question to stop or
change discussion. He says,”How can a man
be born again when he is old? Can he
enter the second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Here is where Christ’s patience as a teacher is
evident, for he ignores Nicodemus’ almost flippant answer to give us one of the
great Christian truths: “Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee,
Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the
kingdom of God.”
What does this mean? Simply, it means that to enjoy
eternal life, we must be born anew, as spiritual creatures of God and members
of His Household. This begins at
baptism. Then, according to a modern translation: ”The Spirit breathes where He
desires, and you hear His voice, but you do not know from where He comes, and
where He goes; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” There is a mysterious
quality to the conversion process, as well as the way God speaks to us in the
still, quiet chambers of our souls.
Once again, Nicodemus is incredulous. He says, “How can these things be?” In a
gentle reproof, Christ answers him and says, “Art thou a master of Israel, and
knowest not these things?” In other words, “You call yourself a spiritual
master and you don’t know this?” Christ continues,
“If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how shall you
believe if I tell you heavenly things?” Our
Lord now draws the conclusion to his lesson by telling Nicodemus about God’s
ultimate revelation to mankind, Himself. From our lesson written in John
3:13-15: “And no one has ascended up to Heaven except He who came down from
Heaven, the Son of Man who is in Heaven. But even as Moses lifted up the
serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that
whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
If we grasped only the two major facts communicated
on this day, first, that God is One in Three and Three in One; and second, that
“even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that whosoever believes in Him
should not perish, but have everlasting life”, we would be spiritual
light-years ahead of those poor souls who have not heard the Gospel, or who have
chosen to reject it.
Thank God, we have not chosen to reject
it. Thank God that He, in His
all-merciful and all-powerful Grace has chosen to call us into His
Kingdom.
It is that calling and that growth in God’s Love
that we celebrate today on Trinity Sunday.
Now, beloved, as we seek to be a permanent presence in this town, let us
invite others to revel in this love as well.
This Trinity season, let us all work, pray and hope
for our spiritual development, our green growth that will be transformed into a
harvest of spiritual fruit. We have the
tools at hand: the Holy Scriptures, the Holy Sacraments, our Church and each
other.
Pray, dearly beloved, that this Trinity season
is both restful and fruitful for all of us.
John 3:7: "Do not
marvel that I said to you, You must be born again."
