What to do with the Trinity [Trinity Sunday; St. John 3:1-15]

Jesus speaks to you all today saying,

“Nicodemus came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.””

So, really; what does Isaiah’s vision of the Lord upon a throne have to do with Trinity Sunday? Well, we could say that this part we heard today, from Isaiah’s book, is filled with threes.

The Lord is on a throne, high and lifted up, and His robe fills the Temple. The Seraphim, which means fiery-ones, have 6 wings; that’s 3 times 2. The wings cover face, feet, and they fly. They cry out, Holy, Holy, Holy. Isaiah is in fear of his life because he has unclean lips, his people have unclean lips, and he has seen the Lord of Sabbaoth.

Finally, one of the Seraphim flies to Isaiah with a burning, hot coal which touches Isaiah’s lips, takes his guilt, and atones for his sin. So, at second glance, maybe the reading from Isaiah has a lot to do with the Trinity. We could spend all week in the Old Testament finding similar and more obvious examples.

Looking at the antiphon for today, it comes from the book of Tobit. It was written in-between the time of the Old and New testament. Even there, we hear the angel Raphael exclaiming to Tobit the glory of the Trinity.

Of course, then, in Jesus’ own words, He tells us to baptize in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Any way you shake a stick at it, it falls out as the Holy Trinity.

Now, where did things go wrong? In the Garden of Eden. Since that time in the beginning, the true understanding of the Lord has been attacked. The Bible has been rewritten and edited just so that most of these references are taken out. If they can’t edit them out, then they taught that God is only one and He would just use angels for two others to be there.

But we don’t just need symbolism to be taught that God is three in one. Its not even going to be the words of men that is going to convince anyone of a God that is one but yet three persons. As the Gospel tells us, only the Spirit will make us believe.

“That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

As we found threes in Isaiah, we could also search for threes in our heart or threes in our life, but we would be sorely disappointed. As the saying goes, good or bad, things come in threes. If they wanted to speak the truth, they would say that those things don’t just come in threes but in multiples of three.

Nothing of the flesh; nothing in nature tells us of God. We don’t know His will, we don’t know His personality, and we certainly don’t know what He is saying. We will also certainly agree with those who tell us that the Trinity is not in the Bible, because the word “trinity” is not there.

Against human nature, then, the Church has firmly placed the Trinity in the centre of the true faith, by establishing the creeds. Moses and the Prophets have constantly preached the Trinity, as we heard, even to the Jews. If all of this is true and of monumental importance, what does it have to do with you? What does “one God, not three gods” and “not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person” have to do with planting corn, counting pennies, or graduating?

It has to do with world-view, meaning, how you view everything you think , say, and do in the world  AND how you view everything that others think, say, and do in the world. A man that believes in the Trinity does plant corn the same way as everyone else, but he does not plant corn for the same reason as everyone else.

This is because now that the Trinity has placed true belief in his heart, the only motive behind planting, working, or doing anything is so he can go to Church.

Now that God has revealed Himself in His Bible, now that this verbal revelation has taken on flesh, and now that the Trinity offers Himself, literally, to His Church for her salvation, what is the point of doing anything else or to being anywhere else except the place God does this?

Indeed, it appears as if things become pointless; meaningless. They become altogether too much for our small minds to handle: an eternal washing accomplished with tap water? Heavenly salvation simply by listening? Divine forgiveness given in eating and drinking?

Yet, it is in these impossible things that the Trinity points us away from and points us to easy to understand things such as words in a book, working, and graduating, among other things.

We are not allowed to remain confused and overwhelmed, but are given gifts and tasks that are within our means to comprehend. Jesus has perfected and accomplished all the impossibles for this reason. These high and mighty topics still remain, but now everyone understands them through Jesus.

Therefore, since we have such a great high priest and since this glorious salvation is already ours, along with the entire kingdom of God, we can simply live. Having faith in baptism that never dries out, we can go into a dry field, plant crops, and know that big or bust, Christ has secured our salvation. Having faith in a Gospel that gives faith freely, we can work 9-5, 9-12, or 12-12 and know that we believe. Having faith in the Body of Christ, we can gain all the knowledge in the world and know that it is all a wash if we do not have the forgiveness of sins.

When Nicodemus comes to Jesus and does not understand baptism, Jesus takes offense, because He knows Nicodemus has worked long and hard to elevate his teaching and life to an high, godly plane of existence. However, Jesus is not in the high and lofty. Jesus is not working and saving that which is high and lifted up. Jesus, and therefore the whole Trinity, is working here, down below.

If Nicodemus really wanted his work to be godly, he wouldn’t work out the most holy things he could think of. He would realize that, in Christ, he is already as holy as he is going to get and therefore could have the most meaningless job on the planet and yet still be doing holy work.

The only thing that divides the work of the Christian from the works of everyone else is faith. Faith that even if we do, what we feel is, a worthless task, God takes pleasure in it. Because, no matter what the Christian does, he can do it loving God and loving his neighbor.

Faith tells us that, even though the Trinity is impossible to understand, it can still shape our life and affect us. Belief in the Trinity therefore changes our worldview and makes us see that it is not what we do, but what Christ has done for us. Therefore we should seek Him out where He wills Himself to be found.

That place, of course, is His own Church where forgiveness and salvation daily come by His merits and are handed out for free.