The text this morning is from the Acts of the Apostles, the second chapter:
But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them:
“Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know— this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. …This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, “ ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.” ’ Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”
Thus far the text.
My dear friends in Christ,
This Holy Trinity Sunday, the Church throughout the world contemplates who our God is and what He has revealed about Himself. Our language doesn’t really even do our God justice, for there is no word in the English language that can apply to God, describing both His plurality of persons, three, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and His unity, being one God. Even the pronouns get confused. His plurality, speaking of the three but referring to one, His unity, speaking of the one but referring to the multiple. There is no word that can do this, except one: the word, “Trinity.”
This word is a combination of two words, in essence, tri, referring to the three, and unity, referring to the one. Three persons, yet one God. Not three Gods. Not one person with different modes. Not an old God and two new Gods. One God. Three persons.
Who of us can comprehend this mystery? We attempt to do so using the words of the Athanasian Creed, but these words merely speak to us that which Scripture has given. We can never plumb the depths of the Trinity, who He is, how He relates to Himself, how He works in the world, both as the united God and individually as each person has their work.
Yet, we try. We try to remain faithful to what the Scriptures have told us, for this is the only place where the Trinity is revealed. Every person, even the self-proclaimed atheist, knows that there is a God. Nature reveals this to us all. Our hearts reveal this. We try to deny it, and more often than not, rejecting the revelation of God, we make ourselves God in His place. But, we who have been called, gathered, and enlightened by the Holy Spirit, in the name of Christ, for the pleasure of the Father, attempt to remain faithful, confessing God according to how He has revealed Himself. And He has done so plainly in the Son, Jesus Christ.
Christ has said, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” John tells us that the only glimpse of God anyone has seen is through the Son. Jesus says that if you know Him, you know the Father. And so, through Christ, we begin to see and understand and believe in the Trinity. For if we have seen Christ, if we know Him, we know the Father, and we know this by the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son, and so we worship and glorify this God.
This is what Peter was attempting to explain to his hearers that Pentecost morning. This Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified, is a man. He is a man who was delivered over to evil men by evil men. And Peter makes it clear that everyone who hears his words, including even us today, are guilty of delivering the Christ over to death. Yet, Christ is also Lord, Peter says. To say that Christ is Lord, Adonai in the Hebrew, Kurios in the Greek, is to put Jesus squarely in the place of God. Lord means God all throughout the Scriptures. Peter points to the Jesus that many saw, many heard, many knew, and says that the man who walked among them for 30-some years, is God Himself.
But this person of Jesus is not God alone, for indeed, David prophesied that this God-man was even being spoken to by another person who is identified as the Lord, as God. “The Lord said to my Lord…” David saw this, He saw the Father speaking to the Son. And as we have spoken about these last two weeks, Jesus receives all power and authority from God the Father through His life, death, resurrection, and ascension. David saw this, he got a sneak peak of this. The Son rules with and for the Father. To hear Jesus’ words is to hear the Father’s words. To receive the words, to believe them, to believe Jesus, is to be the recipient of the work of the Spirit.
The Trinity always works together in this way. The Son was crucified, died, was buried, was resurrected, and ascended into heaven. But He did not do this alone. Only the Son died, but the Father and Spirit were with Him. Only the Son was buried, but the Father and Spirit were with Him. Only the Son was resurrected, but the Father and Spirit were with Him. Only the Son ascended, but the Father and Spirit were with Him. The Trinity always works together.
And even today, in the Baptism of Elias, the Trinity works together. He was baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, the name, singular, of the persons, plural. In that font, Elias was baptized in the blood of Jesus, drowned by the work of the Holy Spirit, by the command of the Father. And in that water, Elias received salvation. There, my son has gone from having no faith and being an enemy of God, at enmity with God for all of his sin, to being saved, receiving the gift of faith in Christ by the Holy Spirit. There, Elias was drowned and made alive. There, Elias is now God’s friend.
And so, too, are you. This is what Jesus says in today’s Gospel reading. We find for us the good work that Jesus does in Baptism, that we must all be born again, and so we are. We are born, in the font, by water and the Spirit. We have come through the parted waters, as Israel did in the Red Sea, the waters of Baptism, with the host of Satan following behind us, and God has drowned and killed those who would do us harm. We have been preserved, as Noah and his family were, in the ark of the Church, and while the whole world drowns in their sin, we are bouyed along, safe and secure until we at last find our rest.
And see how the Trinity works here? The Father has sent the Son to die and be raised for you, for your justification, for the promise of your everlasting life. The Son has done the work for you here, in history, at a specific time and place. And the Spirit continues to deliver this work to you through God’s means of grace, through Baptism, and even through the Holy Absolution and the Holy Supper. The Father sends. The Son redeems. The Spirit delivers. The Trinity works together for you.
He has done this all for you. Though you are indeed guilty of condemning the Son of God to death by your sin, though you were an enemy of God, even while this was all going on in you, God sent His Son to die for you, to forgive you all of your sins. The Son wasn’t sent into the world to condemn the world; He wasn’t sent to condemn you. He was sent to save the world, that all who believe in Him would have everlasting life. He was sent to be lifted high upon the cross. And all of this He did for you, that you would live, that you would be forgiven, that you would believe. And so you do, and so, too, does Elias, beginning this day, and forever. Forever and ever.
This is the Trinity’s work, to bring you to Himself, especially on the Last Day when you shall be resurrected. To bring you to this resurrection, the Trinity has given you gifts, Baptism, Absolution, the Lord’s Supper, to give you faith, to forgive you, to strengthen you unto life everlasting. God has loved the world. And so He has loved you. The Father sent the Son for you. The Son accomplished everything good to forgive your sin. And the Spirit delivers that forgiveness to you each and every day, each and every time we are gathered together here at the altar. For this, we rejoice at the Trinity, and we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in unity, neither confusing the persons nor dividing the substance, the Trinity uncreated, infinite, eternal, almighty, and our God, the One-In-Three. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment