· Isaiah 6:1-8
· Psalm 29 (2)
· Romans 8:12-17
· John 3:1-17
I love this lectionary. I think this is my most favourite lectionary ever. I have been contemplating it for days and it has worked great things in my life already. You know why? Because every time I look at this lectionary, I suddenly remember some chore I've been neglecting. I can tell you the house is spotless, all the laundry is done, folded and put away, the chequebook is balanced, everything. I've accomplished everything through this lectionary.
Well, almost everything. What I didn't accomplish is to write a sermon about the Holy Trinity. So when in doubt, of course, I googled other people's sermons. You can get all the sermons you want online. You can get different denominations, you can get one on each of the readings, you can get regular ones and ones edited for lay readers, it's awesome. But I digress again.
Seriously though, you know what I noticed about the sermons I googled up? All of them also meandered and talked about other things and kinda didn't really get to the point about the Holy Trinity very much. And really, what is the point about Trinity Sunday? We don't have any particular rituals for Trinity Sunday. We don't have any anecdotes or scriptural masterpieces, because the Trinity isn't actually in the Bible. Why do we even have Trinity Sunday? I have no idea. But apparently, we have to spend Trinity Sunday telling ourselves how mysterious the whole concept of "trinity" is.
Ok.
Well you know what? I don't actually find it very mysterious. First of all, there is God. The Big Guy. The Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen. That's pretty simple. And to put it even more simply: "there is no other God than God." Everything that is divine, or proceeds from the divinity, is God. And whatever you call him, her, it or them, there is no other God than God.
Fine. So God tries to talk the Israelites into living righteously, and it doesn't work. God has an idea: he squeezes a part of his consciousness into a human body. As we say, he "sent his son." But he didn't really "send his son", as in tell some other dude that was in Heaven with him "yo, you go down there, get incarnate, get crucified under Pontius Pilate, see if that works any better." What came down was not separate from God and it was not a biological creature. It was a part of the consciousness of God, that squeezed itself into the body and mind of some guy named Yeshua.
Now we say that Jesus is God, but he's not all of God. Because obviously you cannot hold God inside a human body and mind. First of all his brain would melt and pour out his ears and nose, and that's just to begin with. Even when God passed before Moses, he hid Moses in the rock, because no human can behold the glory of God, let alone contain God. So only a part of God's consciousness was contained in the body and mind of the man Yeshua.
And this is why, I think, Jesus doesn't have full divine power. He can whither fig trees, raise the dead, cast out demons, all that. You know why? It occurred to me while I was listening to Roman Catholics talking about miracles. Then I realised, Jesus speaks the word of God. The word of God creates what it declares. So when Jesus says "get up and walk", that is created. If he said it to a snake or a rock, that would get up and walk too. Jesus can create what he declares because he has the authority to speak the word of God. But he doesn't really have unlimited powers. A lot of times he'll say "well I could have some angels do this, but I'm not going to." Because that's not part of the authority he's been given, so then he'd have to refer it to his boss, and as we know, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test.
Nor does Jesus know everything the Father knows. It takes him quite a while to realise where the whole thing is going. He has a certain amount of foreknowledge, but he's not all-knowing. He, unlike the Father, is not [SQG] "almighty."
So Jesus, the Son, is fully human, and he contains a part of God's consciousness and a part of God's authority. Then, the prophecy is fulfilled, and the human body and mind of Yeshua are taken up to Heaven, whether physically or metaphysically. But something of the Christ remains in the world. Not the person of Yeshua, but the part of God's consciousness that indwelt him. And that is the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father. From the Father, mind you. I'm not big on the "filioque" thing. The Paraclete proceeds from the Father. It is sent from the Father to be alongside of us, to be our helper and advocate.
That's who, or what, is the Holy Spirit. And that's why we have the Holy Spirit. And as to where and when, we know that the Holy Spirit is with us in all times and places. Which leaves one last question: how is the Spirit among us? In what form? How do we know the Spirit?
As Jesus reportedly said to Nicodemus: "The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." (John 3:8-9)
So that's how the Spirit is. It is like the wind, blowing here and there. One might even say the Spirit is going to and fro on the earth, and walking up and down on it. And we hear it. We see the things that are moved by it. And like the wind, it can blow us here and there. But we don't see where it comes from or where it goes. We know what causes wind, as we know what causes the Paraclete to be with us, and we feel the wind and the Holy Spirit around us, but it doesn't answer to us.
See, the Paraclete is here to help us, but it's not here to help us with the things we want. The Paraclete does not raise the dead, or cure migraines, or get us into the job we want. The Paraclete is here to help us do the work of the Lord. All that stuff that God told us through Yeshua, that was important. God didn't take up a human body so he could raise the dead and turn water into wine. God can do that any time. What he was after was talking to us, clearly, in plain language, and showing us exactly what he wants done. Because clearly the whole thing with visions and prophecies was way over our heads. So he comes down, explains what he wants done, goes home and leaves the Paraclete behind to help us carry out the work. So we can choose to work with the Paraclete and do the work of the Lord, or not.
That's it. I think that's pretty simple. The Cliff's Notes Trinity, if you will: God creates everything; gives man free will; inhabits human body to lead by example; takes away human body, leaves consciousness to help continue his work.
Our hymn for today: #396, Spirit of Gentleness
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