Holy Trinity Sunday June 3 2012

Trinity Sunday June 3 2012 Our Saviour's

How to explain the Holy Trinity?  The short answer is, you can't.  Take a look at the fans up there on the ceiling.  There are three blades, but they are whirling around so fast it looks like just one blur.  And if you stuck your hand in there to try to stop it so you could see each blade clearly, it would hurt like blazes!  That's the kind of thing that happens when you stick your mind into the dance of the Holy Spirit to try to stop the action so you can examine each person separately – your head hurts! Everything God does is done by the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit.  You can't separate them.  But you can tell them apart.

Sometimes people try to describe the difference between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, by different things that God does.  They talk about God the Creator, God the Redeemer, and God the Sustainer.  Now this would be very tidy if we knew that God the Father was the Creator of the world, and God the Son, Jesus, was the Redeemer of the world, and God the Holy Spirit was the sustainer of our faith and life.  And indeed they are.  

But Creation, for example, involves all 3 persons of the Trinity.  In Genesis 1 God says, “Let US make human beings in OUR image.” Plural right from the start. And in Psalm 104 it says, “When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth.” And in Colossians 1 it says about Jesus, that “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created.” So it seems that just making the Father the Creator won't work.  The Son and the Holy Spirit are Creator, too.

This is also the case with our redemption or salvation.  Yes, it was Jesus who died on the cross, but he was doing it by the Father's will, and it was the Father who raised him from the dead.  And it is the Spirit who warms our hearts and sparks faith in our minds so that we can embrace the cross for our salvation.  So Jesus is our Saviour, and the Father is our Saviour, and the Spirit is also our Saviour.

And it is the same with the sustaining that we receive from God.  Yes, the Holy Spirit comes to us to awaken God's gifts in us and fill us with joy.  But the love we have is poured into our hearts by the Father.  And Jesus promised to be with us always, to the end of the age.  So the Holy Spirit is the Sustainer, and Jesus is the Sustainer, and the Father is the Sustainer.

Are you thoroughly confused yet?  All three persons of the Trinity are present in whatever God does, but we do identify some things more with one and some things with another.  The point is, God comes to us in many different ways; we experience God's presence in many different ways.
In our first story this morning, Isaiah experienced the presence of God in the temple.  And we think, well, of course, that is where people are supposed to experience the presence of God!  But to tell the truth, that does not always happen, does it? We come to church, to the sacred space, hoping that God will make God's self known to us. It is not always as dramatic as Isaiah's experience, not by a long shot. But God is there, and God does become known to us. 

But worship is not the only place that we can experience the presence of God. Many people experience God's presence through Creation.  I must say, that when I walk in the woods,  I often feel very close to God. I think that is why the hymn “How Great Thou Art”  is so popular. Sometimes God the Creator is our first experience of God.

And some people first experience the presence of God in the midst of a crisis. It may be that they need healing, or it may be that they need forgiveness, that something is wrong, drastically wrong with their lives.  In the midst of their brokenness, they cry out, and God is present with them. The work that is so closely associated with Jesus, the work of healing and forgiving and saving, is some people's first and most powerful experience of the presence of God.

And still others first experience God in the love and acceptance of the Christian community.  The Holy Spirit binds us together in love, with all our differences and our quirkiness, and this is a powerful testimony to the presence of God.  When, as the Body of Christ, we are Christ to one another, in reaching out, in hugs, in smiles, in casseroles, in prayers, in water and bread and wine – that too is the presence of God.

What was your first experience of the presence of God?  Was it in creation? Was it in a crisis situation?  Was it among God's people?  No matter how you first experienced the presence of God, your spiritual growth requires some experience of the others as well.  A person who finds God in nature, but who never comes to the realization that life is broken and needs a Saviour, remains a child spiritually.  A person who comes to God on their knees begging forgiveness, and yet who never joins in a Christian community, will have no opportunity for growth.  A person who lives happily in the love of the church, but who never is exposed to the wonders of creation, will never reach their full potential.

God is with us, God is all around us, God is within us, God is within the people around us.  There are so many opportunities to experience the presence of God. 

Isaiah met God in the temple.  The furnishings of the temple, the smoke of the incense, the carvings of the Seraphim, became windows through which God was able to reach out and touch Isaiah, and call him to ministry.

We call sacred, the things through which God makes God's presence known.  The church is a sacred place, because many people encounter God here.  The bread and the wine and the waters of baptism are sacred, because God promises to meet us there.  The whole world is sacred, too, because God reaches out to us through Creation.  And this gathering, this small, but powerful gathering, is also sacred, because God is present to us in each other.

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all here, right now.  And just as they cried out to Isaiah, “Who shall I send?”  God is still crying out for people to go for God.  And in the same way, we cry out, “Here am I; send me!”   And as we respond to the moving, urging, impelling work of God, we are caught up in the movement of the Holy Trinity, always moving, like the fan, refreshing, energizing, enabling us to be what God wants us to be.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.