Trinity Sunday                                                                           Exodus 3:1-6
June 11, 2006                                                                          Canticle 13
St. Margaret of Scotland Episcopal Church                               Romans 8:12-17
The Rev. Linda McCloud                                                         John 3:1-16  

Holy Trinity, One God
(Have mercy on us) 

Today is Trinity Sunday.  This is the day on which priests often invite a guest preacher.  I remember that as an unsuspecting seminarian, I was invited to preach on Trinity Sunday at Honey Creek three years ago.  And, as an unsuspecting seminarian, I accepted the invitation.  When I got into the research I soon realized that trying to explain God — the Holy and undivided Trinity — is like trying to capture a rainbow with your bare hands.  

The early Church Fathers tried to explain God, and they came up with the Nicene Creed.  Today, we accept the Nicene Creed as a “sufficient statement of the Christian faith.”  (BCP 877)  The early history of the church is a history of the Trinitarian debate. Augustine of Hippo gave us some food for thought that we are still chewing.  He offers proof of the Trinitarian nature of God in this way:  In the story in Genesis when God is creating humankind, God says, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness . . .”  Augustine points out that we have the imprint of God in Trinitarian ways.  For example, we have memory, understanding and will.  Furthermore, we are conscious that we posses these three attributes.  I won’t quote Augustine on this directly, because his explanation is a real tongue-twister.    

I am glad that the early Church Fathers figured this out in the first three hundred or four hundred years of Christianity.  Now we can all get on with the business of evangelizing the world in Jesus’ name – baptizing in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.   

The best way to discuss the Holy and Undivided Trinity is to follow Jesus’ example.  He was always comparing God to something we can understand.  To Nicodemus, Jesus said the Spirit is like the wind.  No one can tame the wind.  God is completely in charge of that.   

            In some way, we are all trying to figure out God, or to figure out where we belong in the grand scheme of things.  Today we are still basking in the warm glow of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came as wind and fire upon the first disciples and gave birth to the church.  This is the Sunday when we start trying to define and explain God.  We try to put a label on what happened in our encounter with God.  Theologians have been attempting to do this for two thousand years.  Now it’s our turn.  The Holy Trinity is like this:  God is three in one and one in three.  Get it?  It’s a great mystery.  As Saint Patrick might have said, “It’s like a clover.” 

            Nicodemus was trying to figure out God.  He couldn’t seem to imagine how God, whom he had come to know and love through the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms, could be revealed in this wandering Galilean carpenter.  He saw the signs and wonders -- Jesus’ miracles.  Those were no secret.  But somehow Nicodemus suspected that there was more to Jesus than met the eye.  He was wise to check this out.   

It was late.  It was night in Nicodemus’ world.  He did not have the light of the Gospel to guide him, but all of that was about to change.  Jesus as usual did not have a permanent address, so Nicodemus had apparently made arrangements beforehand to meet him.  This meeting at night gave them an opportunity to speak privately, away from the crowds.  Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a leader of Jesus’ people, the Jews.  As such his duty was to guard the traditions and laws that governed them as a people.  I like to think that Nicodemus had been on the front row when Jesus was preaching and teaching.  Maybe he was one of those Pharisees who asked questions and confronted Jesus.  Maybe their interaction is the source of some of the best sayings of Jesus.   

But now, it was time for Nicodemus to meet Jesus for himself.  Their exchange this time results in Nicodemus being given the central theme of Christianity.  We see “John 3:16” on billboards and banners and we are supposed to know it by heart:  “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”  Those who believe in Jesus and are baptized begin immediately to live into that eternal life promised in these verses.  “Eternal life” is not only life in the hereafter.  It is a daily living in the here and now in the presence of the Eternal God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  We are wise to check this out for ourselves.   

Jesus compared his own death and resurrection – his being “lifted up” -- to something that Nicodemus would understand.  Here’s a brief history of the reference to the “Serpent in the wilderness.” (Numbers 21:1-9)  Moses was leading God’s people from Egypt through the wilderness to the Promised Land.  They rebelled against God’s leadership and against Moses, complaining and accusing God of not taking proper care of them.  So, poisonous snakes came into the camp and began biting the people so that they died.  Moses interceded for the people and God told Moses to make a serpent and put it on a pole.  Moses made a bronze serpent, put it on a pole, and if someone was bitten, they could look at that serpent and live.  Likewise, we who have been bitten by the sting of sin, of rebellion against God, can look to Jesus and live.  

Jesus gives us such simple ways to follow him. We don’t have to understand the Holy Trinity to do that, but the church requires that we believe in God as Holy Trinity.  

The doctrine of God as Holy Trinity is a dogma of the church.  The two primary dogmas of our church are the doctrine of the Holy Trinity and the doctrine of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ.  “Heresy” is defined as the formal and deliberate rejection of these two dogmas.  Dogma comes from a Greek word meaning “to seem.”  In this case it means that it seems to the authoritative governing body of the church to be Divine Revelation.  As such, it is accepted as religious truth without objection.  This means that dogma is officially taught by the authoritative body of the church, in particular the first four ecumenical councils.  The last one of these was at Chalcedon in 451 A.D.     

            Maybe Nicodemus did not fully understand God.  There is no way that anyone can.  To know and love God, we can start with the evidence of God’s love for us in Jesus Christ – crucified, buried and raised from the dead.   

Nicodemus shows up again at the end of John’s Gospel.  This time he is teamed up with Joseph of Arimathea to bury the body of Jesus.  Nicodemus contributed a hundred pounds of spices to help give Jesus a decent burial.  All he really needed to know was John 3:16.  That should be enough for us, when it comes right down to it.