Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
Psalm 8
Romans 5:1-5
John 16:12-15
One o'clock, Two o'clock, Three o'clock Rock. Fifty years ago this tune became the first Rock And Roll hit. It was recorded at the Pythian Temple Studio in New York City on April 12, 1954 by Bill Haley and his Comets. After it was featured in the movie Blackboard Jungle it went on to sell 25 million copies.
That was 1950’s culture. In our 21st century culture another group of three came to the fore front when the Trinity of Morpheus, Neo, and a woman named Trinity were the stars of the techno series Matrix.
Morpheus - the father figure.
Neo - the new man, the chosen one, the Messiah
Trinity - the free Spirit, inseparable from the other two.
Somehow our modern culture still uses an image which goes way back to ancient times and our Christian faith. Many fine colleges in Ireland, England, and the USA are named "Trinity College." Many churches, including many UCC churches are called "Trinity Church." Some of you may watch the Trinity Broadcasting Network. All of these pay homage to what we celebrate today: Trinity Sunday.
We Christians recognize that God has come to us as one in three ----- as Trinity. Today we began worship by singing a song attributed to St. Patrick:
I bind unto myself today
The strong name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same
The Three in One and One in Three.
After the Prayer of Confession and Passing of the Peace we sang:
Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son,
and to the Holy Ghost;
As it was in the beginning,
is now and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen.
At the end of worship we will sing a "Threefold Amen." Again in honor of the God we know as a Trinity ---- three in one.
Some would criticize us for this --- saying that we confess our faith in three Gods. Officially this would be called Tri-theism. Belief in three Gods. This is not what we confess. We are simply saying that from the beginning the Wise Creator God cannot be capsulated, cannot be compartmentalized, cannot be limited by one name or one concept.
This is why I like a hymn we are not singing today:
Bring many names, beautiful and good,
celebrate, in parable and story, holiness in glory,
living, loving God.
.....Strong mother God, working night and day.
.....Warm father God, hugging every child.
.....Old aching God, grey with endless care.
....Young, growing God, eager, on the move.
....Great, living God, never fully known.
Brian Wren, one of our great living hymn writers penned these words in 1989, but they are in a hymnal we do not own. "Aspects of the divine are revealed in our maleness, femaleness, youth, and age in a moving, growing matrix of life in God."
When we describe God as a Trinity we are going way back to the Bible, even though the word Trinity is not actually used in the Bible. Traditionally, of course, we think of the Trinitarian God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is because we can go back to the Bible and see these images there. We also use the words Creator, Savior and Sustainer. When we read the Bible we also see God in these images.
In God’s indescribable wisdom, this world was created, redeemed and is sustained. Our Lesson from Proverbs this morning speaks of such a wise creator. But before the mountains were formed, before the seas took shape, even before the heavens appeared ----- there was God’s wisdom.
Wisdom speaks in our lesson from Proverbs:
"Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth."
This wisdom is a part of God’s godness. In wisdom God created this world about which we sang in Curtis Beach’s paraphrase of Psalm 8 and about which we will sing in the hymn so many of us know in English as "How Great Thou Art," but the Swedish know as "O Store Gud" and we will sing this morning, using the English words: "When I, O Lord, behold thy vast creation."
The music of these beloved hymns helps us to move beyond mere words to praise the wonders of this wise creator God. In this way, I believe, we are able to capture some of the majesty and mystery of the Triune God.
In our Gospel Lesson this morning we are with Jesus and the disciples on his final night with them.. He has just washed their feet and given them the new commandment of love. In this very time we see what John Robinson calls "the human face of God" in Jesus the Christ. In Jesus we can touch and see God. In Jesus we can feel God. In Jesus we experience another aspect of God. The Savior God. The second part of the Trinity.
But here we also are given a sense of the sustaining, sanctifying God ---- the third person of the Trinity. Jesus says:
"When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth." The Holy Spirit, the truth-teller, will come and be present with those disciples. This is the sustaining presence of God which we cannot see in physical form like the disciples could see Jesus. This is the presence of God which we can only feel when we are overwhelmed, like Curtis Beach was and sing:
O how wondrous, O how glorious
is your name in every land,
God, whose purpose shines before us
toward the goal that you have planned!
Yours the will our hearts are seeking,
conscious of our human need.
Spirit in our spirit speaking,
makes us yours, O God, indeed.
The wise creator God has been present among us in Jesus. The wise creator God is still present among us in the Holy Spirit. And we are reminded that this wise creator God now is giving us the strength to live our lives as those who accept the mystery of life and live that life with both joy and purpose, even, as several families in our community discovered this week in the midst of great sadness.
In that most complicated of books in the Bible, but also most wonderful pieces of scripture, our friend Paul, the founder of early Christian Churches and writer of encouraging letters, tells us what it means to follow this Triune God. In the process Paul give us another set of Three. Yes, good things seem to come in Three.
Paul writes:
"Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
Yes, various people have and are suffering in this time. I think of the grieving Opelt, Kuchenbecker, and Kren families in our community. I think of American mothers who grieve for soldier sons and daughters killed in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. I think of African children grieving for lost parents to the scourge of AIDS. I think of the Reagan family mourning the loss of their beloved father and husband and of their determination to fight the scourge of Alzheimer's.
Then I remember Paul’s words about suffering. He claims that through the power of God our suffering produces:
Endurance.
Character.
Hope.
We who recognize the truth of God in the Trinity,
trust in the presence of a vulnerable and suffering God,
a Savior who is with us in our suffering,
and a Spirit who grows in us the "endurance, character and hope" Paul promised.
On this Trinity Sunday we dare to make this confession of faith in the wise creator God who was there at the beginning, has been with us in the depths, and will guide us along future paths.
