Sermon - Trinity 2022 - John 3:1-17

Holy Trinity, Jan Cornelisz Vermeyen, Early 16th Century

A blessed feast of the Holy Trinity to you dear friends in Christ! On this joyful day we got to confess together in unity that glorious Athanasian creed! In this Creed we confessed together the catholic faith, the faith that you must believe if you’re to be saved, and if you don’t believe what is confessed in this creed then you will without doubt perish eternally. Those are strong words which should impress upon us the importance of meditating upon them at least once a year.

I know it seems like a long creed, but it’s really not when considering what it's confessing. In those few words were summarized the catholic faith, namely, that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, and that our Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God who is at the same time both God and man. In other words we worship one God, not three gods, and yet each 

person of the Trinity is true God. The Father is God, the Son is God, the Spirit is God, yet there is only one Triune God. The three persons are coeternal and coequal, yet the three persons are not the same, the Father is neither created nor begotten, though the Son is begotten but not made, and the Spirit is neither made nor created but proceeding. Jesus is the Son of God, who is true God and true man, equal to the Father with respect to His divinity, though less than the Father with respect to His humanity. He is God and man, but not two, just one Christ.

Perhaps this seems complicated, and I suppose it is a little bit, however it’s worth taking the time to ponder and letting it soak in. What we have in the Athanasian Creed is a very succinct summary of what we believe about the Trinity. Much more can be said and has been said. For example St. Augustine, writing about the same time that this creed was composed, wrote a book called On the Trinity. Translated into English it’s well over 500 pages.

Though I suppose you may be wondering what value there is in having a day devoted to meditating on who God is. Afterall, this is a bit heady and hard to fully comprehend. The value in contemplating God’s essence is firstly that there’s no salvation outside of the Triune God. If we aren’t worshiping the true God because we don’t know who He is, then we won’t be saved, so we have to be reminded of God’s identity regularly. Secondly, when we ponder who God is we see more clearly all that God does for us and learn to better fear, love, and trust in God above all things.

In the Creed today we confessed that God is uncreated, infinite, eternal, and almighty. On account of these attributes St. Paul wrote in Romans: “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and how inscrutable His ways!... For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.” God’s depth of infinite knowledge is what we refer to as God’s omniscience; God knows all things. Since the Triune God knows all things, His providence is perfect.

When you read through the scriptures it all seems so messy at first glance. God created Adam and Eve, who immediately plunged headlong into sin. Their first two sons don’t get along, so much so that one murdered the other. The world became so sinful that God had to drown all the world except for one boatload of people and animals. After they got off the ark their descendents were so wicked that God had to confuse their languages at the tower of Babel. God preserved the Israelites by sending them to Egypt where they became slaves and then God had to lead them out of Egypt. The first king God gave the Israelites, Saul, turned out to be a dud. The second king, David, turned out to be a murderous adulterer, and it was from his adultery with Bathsheba that the Christ was ultimately descended through Solomon, who by-the-way had a ridiculous number of wives and concubines yet was apparently the wisest man to have ever lived. Then coming to Jesus, He is God’s Son, born of a young teenage virgin in a cave, who then was crucified by the very people He came to save. Sure looks like a mess.

But let us remember: “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor?” We have a difficult enough time just comprehending the Trinity and understanding how Jesus can be both 100% God and 100% man. What makes us think that we should be able to understand God’s mind? What sort of vainglory fills our heads that we presume to be God’s counselor? The Lord explained to Isaiah and the people of Israel: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.”

God’s omniscience means that He knows all things which have ever happened, and He knows all things that will ever happen. He knows the thoughts and desires of all men’s hearts, He comprehends the outcome of even the slightest occurrence. Since God is eternal, the alpha and omega, the beginning and end, God is therefore beyond time. Furthermore, since God is good and He works all things together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose, we can completely trust God to act perfectly according to what is best.

God’s providence is real. He does in fact provide for His people and He even provides generationally in ways that are nearly impossible for us to perceive unless we look back on them in history. “I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.” For example, the great flood which killed so many and caused so much destruction has provided us with coal and oil that has resulted in so much good. Or David’s affair with Bathsheba was such a nightmare, and yet Jesus was born through that atrocity. Jesus was rejected by the Jewish authorities, betrayed by one of His closest friends, beaten and hanged on a cursed tree to be the Savior of all.

God provides for His Christians in ways that we can’t even comprehend. God’s providence is real even and particularly when it looks like God is not providing. When a loved one dies, or when catastrophe strikes, or when sickness, danger, persecution, famine, and poverty overwhelm you, remember that God is He who knows all things and will provide for you in ways beyond human knowledge. 

When you have a hard time believing that God is still providing for you, I want you recall exactly what it is that God has directed everything towards: your salvation through Jesus. “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life. For God thusly loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.”

Thus the crucifix is a constant reminder of God’s providence for us. In the midst of sorrows and a world weighed down with the sickness of sin, we look upon the cross of Jesus and behold His crucified body which imparts to us everlasting healing. We remember that the Father did not withhold His only-begotten beloved Son from us, but gave Him up for us all. The Father who so wonderfully created us, the Son who so mercifully died for us, and the Spirit who so powerfully fills us with hope shall not ever abandon us.

There is only one true God in existence: the Triune God. All other gods are not really gods, they’re but piddly demons disguised as powerful deities. Only the Holy Trinity provides for us, all others are liars, thieves, and cheats. None other has the power to save, only the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So as the crucifix reminds us of God’s heart towards us, so does the sign of the cross and the invocation of the Trinity remind us of the God who cares for us. While we ponder on the mysteries of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the sacraments, let us be comforted to know that God has given us a spiritual rebirth from above, transcending this simple world of flesh, to a world above where these mysteries will be made clear.