Restoration and Life

 Rev. Stephen E. Stults

St.  Paul’s Anglican Church

Trinity Sunday

May 26, 2024

 

Maya came out of the religious house confused.  She had just attended a “meeting” where everyone there had spoken. In fact, they had all given their opinions about the nature of God. Some of them couldn’t use the word “God”, but made reference to “My Higher Power”, “my Eternal Friend”, “Great Parent”, and so on.  While interesting perhaps to the quizzical, it was all a  bit much to Maya.  In fact, some of it, she thought, was downright comical.

 

Maya had been raised in a nominal Christian home.  Her folks, Baby Boomers, were not particularly religious.  After all, THEIR parents had been part of the so-called “Great Generation”.  Her grandparents grew up in the Great Depression, voted for FDR, fought World War II, and then came home to build businesses and careers as if nothing had happened to them. But something had.  Many men and women came home from WWII with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome).  It was largely untreated, except for self-medication through the three Martini lunch and maybe a snort or two when they got home.  Many of them had lost their faith in the war, as well. 

 

As a result, although many members of the Great Generation became successful, their family and spiritual lives suffered.  Their children, now part of the great Baby Boom after the war, got into sex, drugs and rock-n-roll.  Many of them took part in anti- Vietnam War demonstrations and became hippies.  Morality became a lot more “fluid”, shall we say and the old religious forms lost much of their appeal.

 

This, in turn, flowed down to the next generation(s) such as the Millenials , Gen X, and Gen Z, where we find Maya puzzling about the nature of God. Sure, she had heard about Jesus.  Wasn’t he the guy they crucified, who claimed to be the Son of God?  Didn’t those Christians claim he rose from the dead?  Who was this Jesus guy, anyhow?  Also, Maya knew kids that claimed to have some kind of Holy Spirit around them.  What’s with that? Some of her friends actually claimed to know some spirit called the Paraclete, or Holy Ghost or something. It seemed a bit superstitious to her. After all, can’t see, can’t prove, right?

 

Wasn’t God sort of a heavenly grandfather, who looked down from His cloud form heaven, to watch what was going on?  She remembered from her 18^th Century history class about a group called the Deists.  They thought that God was like a great Watchmaker, who constructed the World and then just let it run, like a watch.  He didn’t intervene.  Instead, God made the rules and let His Creation operate according to those rules. Was that who God was?

 

So Maya had a lot of questions. She especially puzzled about the “proof” question.  How could anyone believe in something they couldn’t see?  Luckily for her, she ran across an article on the Internet by a Bishop that made some sense to her.  It was entitled “Proof and Faith”.  As she read, she reckonized the very same objection she had to Christianity.  The Bishop asked the question, “How do we know atoms exist? We surely cannot see them, can we?” The Bishop went on to lay out the physics behind it, in simplified language. He also mentioned the tragic use of applied physics in building bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.  If atoms weren’t real because we cannot see them, how come the bombs worked?

 

Maya mentioned this to a friend.  Although they hadn’t been close lately, somehow this girl ran into Maya at a local coffee shop and they began to talk.

Maya’s friend laughed and said, “How cool is this? I felt exactly the same way until about a year ago.  Then, a couple of things happened.  Somebody gave me a Bible and told me to read the Book of John first.  I did that. It was wonderful, but I needed more.  The same person who gave me the book told me to read Matthew as well.  He said, “When you get to Chapter 3 pay particular attention to what goes on when Jesus is baptized by John.  This will help you know who  God  is.  So, I did.  Do you know what I found? Here, I have a Bible. Let’s look at it together.”

 

Maya and her friend huddled over the Bible, open to St. Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 3. She ran her finger down the page to verse 13, where she read: “Matthew 3:13-17  ¹³ Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to the Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him.  ¹⁴ But John would have hindered him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?  ¹⁵ But Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffereth him.  ¹⁶ And Jesus when he was baptized, went up straightway from the water: and lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming upon him;  ¹⁷ and lo, a voice out of the heavens, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”  After that, Maya’s friend turned to Luke and Mark to show her the same passage. She said, “See, God is One Being in three Persons: Father, Son and Holy Ghost. It’s hard to understand, but it’s supported by Scripture:  One God in three Persons.  Maya, the Church figured this out in an early big council, called the Council of Nicaea in 325 a.d. There were a lot of questions about the nature of God then, too.  Listen, I want you to read a couple of things and then we’ll talk again.” She fished in her purse and took out an old Book of Common Prayer, leatherbound and very well used.  She said “Read page 71 first.  Then, here, write this down.  Read what’s called the Athanasian Creed.  It really reinforces this first one. Look up a copy on Google.”

 

Over the next couple of weeks, it was not unfair to say that Maya’s life changed.  She read the following from the Athanasian Creed and it shook her to her core:

 That we worship one God in trinity and the trinity in unity,
    neither blending their persons
    nor dividing their essence.
        For the person of the Father is a distinct person,
        the person of the Son is another,
        and that of the Holy Spirit still another.
        But the divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one,
        their glory equal, their majesty coeternal.

She read on:

What quality the Father has, the Son has, and the Holy Spirit has.
        The Father is uncreated,
        the Son is uncreated,
        the Holy Spirit is uncreated.

        The Father is immeasurable,
        the Son is immeasurable,
        the Holy Spirit is immeasurable.

        The Father is eternal,
        the Son is eternal,
        the Holy Spirit is eternal.

            And yet there are not three eternal beings;
            there is but one eternal being.
            So too there are not three uncreated or immeasurable beings;
            there is but one uncreated and immeasurable being.

Maya’s mind reeled. Could it be?  Then she came to the part about Jesus:

Although he is God and human,
    yet Christ is not two, but one.
    He is one, however,
    not by his divinity being turned into flesh,
    but by God's taking humanity to himself.
    He is one,
    certainly not by the blending of his essence,
    but by the unity of his person.
    For just as one human is both rational soul and flesh,
    so too the one Christ is both God and human.

    He suffered for our salvation;
    he descended to hell;
    he arose from the dead;
    he ascended to heaven;
    he is seated at the Father's right hand;
    from there he will come to judge the living and the dead.
    At his coming all people will arise bodily
    and give an accounting of their own deeds.
    Those who have done good will enter eternal life,
    and those who have done evil will enter eternal fire.

This is the catholic faith:
one cannot be saved without believing it firmly and faithfully.

Maya was still; stunned. Somehow, this made sense to her. She didn’t know why. but it did.  She was quiet. Then, she did something she hadn’t done in a very long time.  She prayed.  As she did, she found herself giving thanks in a way new to her. Maya said, “Thank you, Father for showing Yourself to me. I think I’m beginning to know a little about who You are. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

As she put her computer to sleep, she chuckled to herself... “There really must be a Holy Spirit after all.”

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

Amen.