Sunday, May 18, 2008 - Matthew 28:16-20

Today we are celebrating the “Sunday of the Holy Trinity.” Trinity Sunday is the day that we take a special look at the relationship that we have with the three persons of the only living God: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The Trinity is truly one of the great mysteries of faith. We confess the creed each Sunday. We confess our faith in the Triune God, we know and believe that there is a Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, yet not three gods but one God: as we confessed in the Athanasian Creed. But this is a hard thing to understand from an intellectual point of view.

We like things to make perfect sense and be mathematically and scientifically consistent. It is in our nature to be doubting Thomas’s and only believe it when we see it. That is why faith plays such an important role in our lives. Faith is putting trust in something that we have not seen or do not understand. It is difficult to see the picture of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together being three -- yet one.

The three Persons in One God does not make sense mathematically, but as Christians, we should not be frightened by the unknown. We rejoice in this mystery of faith. As I like to say, if we only believe the things about God that our minds can understand, then the god that we believe in can only be as smart as we are -- and that would be frightening.

We rejoice in the fact that God is a complex God. He is not just some divine spiritual essence floating out there in the universe. He is a God with personality. He is full of mystery, but He is also full of truth. And He has given us all of the knowledge that we need in order to know Him.

We see the work of God’s three Persons in the lessons appointed for today:

In Genesis, we see God the Father’s creative work. And with confidence, each Sunday we confess “I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible.”

In our Epistle lesson, we see the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon His Church as Peter lifts up his voice and addresses the crowd on Pentecost. Following this sermon, we are told that a crowd of 3000 believed and were baptized that day.

And from Matthew’s Gospel, we hear the Great Commission Christ gave to His disciples, “Go therefore into all nations baptizing in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

The Sunday of the Holy Trinity is not just a day to ponder the infinite philosophical complexity or mathematical challenge of the three Persons being One God. The reality of God is not just a mathematical, philosophical excercise. The reality of God is that He is a creating, saving, sanctifying God who loves and cares for you His children. God has shown this ever since He said, “Let Us make man in Our image.”

The Persons of God have always been plural; three of them; and since creation, the focus of God’s attention has been on His relationship to the people of this world. We are the reason that God created this marvelous universe. He has known us from eternity. He has loved us from eternity. And He sent His Son to die for us so that we will be with Him in eternity.

The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit being three Persons in One God is a hard thing for our feeble minds to comprehend. However, as people of faith, it is not necessary for us to completely understand everything in the Bible. Its a good thing that God does not require that of us, or we would all be in deep trouble.

We are a people of faith. Although we may not be able to understand some of the mysteries of God, we know that they are true because God’s Word is true and He has sent His Spirit of truth into our hearts. The greatest philosophers in the world cannot adequately, completely describe the relationship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. However, even the smallest child who has received faith through Holy Baptism has that truth dwelling in his or her heart.

The Sunday of Holy Trinity is a day that we take time to marvel at the greatness of the One True God. We see the greatness of the Father’s creation when Christ “was the craftsman at His side,” as it says in Proverbs chapter 8. But more importantly for us, we see the greatness of God’s redemption. Ever since Adam ruined God’s perfect creation with sin, God has been working in our lives to do away with that sin.

So Christ, who was the craftsman at the Father’s side when the world was created, came into the world to redeem it from sin.

Understanding how there can be three Persons in One God is a great mystery. However, we might consider it an even greater mystery that this One perfect God would love the sinful people of this world so much that Christ would be sent to offer Himself up to be crucified in our place for our sins.

The ways of God are often a mystery for us. God does not think or act in the way that we usually do. But thanks be to God that He doesn’t. On Trinity Sunday, we do take time to examine the complexities of God, and marvel at the goodness of God.

There have been thousands of pages of books written explaining the complexities of the Trinity, but for God’s people of faith, it is God’s perfect goodness and mercy that stands out as the one characteristic of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that permeates everything we can say about God.

He created us so that He could love us. He proclaimed His Word to us so that we could know and love Him. He adopted us into His family through the waters of Baptism so that we could rightfully be called His children -- even though we are sinners. He feeds us with the fruits of the earth and with His own Son’s body and blood.

He shelters us from the harshness of weather and from the cruelty of Satan. He has given us an inheritance in His Kingdom -- for we are rightfully His children. He has reserved a place for us in eternity -- as the saints who have gone before us have already discovered. And He has promised a bodily resurrection on the Last Day -- when there will be a new heaven and a new earth.

If you desire to understand God, you need to recognize the depth of His love for you. Only then will you get clear picture of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

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