Trinity Sunday 07c

On the Upper West Side of NYC lived an assimilated Jewish man who was now a very militant atheist. But he sent his son Morris to Trinity School because, despite its denominational roots, it was a great school and completely secular.

After a month, the boy came home and said casually, "By the way, Dad, I learned what Trinity means! It means 'The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.'"

The father could barely control his rage. He seized his son by the shoulders and declared, "Morris, I'm going to tell you something now and I want you never to forget it. Forget this Trinity business. There is only one God... and we don't believe in him!"

There are many people who believe in God but who cannot believe in the Trinity. How does the doctrine of the Trinity affect the lives of people today? And by the doctrine of the Trinity I mean that Scripture describes a God who is one in essence and three in persons, each person of the Trinity is co-equal, co-existent, and co-eternal.

One atheist declared, “Christianity is simply recycled mythology. Take the ‘Trinity’ – it’s just a rip-off of the triads of antiquity, like Isis, Osiris and Horus of Egypt, or the Hindu gods, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.”

Was this critic justified in rejecting Christianity – and the Trinity in particular – because it’s simply warmed over, rehashed mythology?

Not at all. While the triads of antiquity may be dim echoes of the Christian Trinity, the Trinity is NOT a triad or group of three gods. The Trinity, as I described earlier, is one God! There‘s an enormous difference. The Trinity is an utterly unique theological concept. It is the doctrine of the unity of God in three persons – God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. All three are the one God.

I know it’s next to impossible to visualize this. But because our human minds can’t grasp the concept doesn’t mean it isn’t true. God exists outside of space and time and beyond the possibility of complete human understanding.

Maybe a physical analogy will help. You probably learned in school that white light contains all colors. A prism can reveal those individual colors.

There are, in fact, three primary colors – red, yellow, and blue – yet light is one! Remove one color, and you no longer have white light.

It’s the same, in a sense, with God – who, interestingly, is figuratively called “light” in the Bible. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one God – distinct but not separate. And there is nothing like that in all of mythology.

So, what difference does it make? Consider two examples. A man badly damaged by life declared: “I believe in Jesus, but I can’t believe in God.” He dismissed God as distant, indifferent and sometimes even vengeful and cruel. But the man believed that Jesus was good, gracious and compassionate. He could believe in Jesus, but not in God.

A Sunday School teacher told her class that God hates sin so much that he would cast the whole world into hell. But, she went on to say, Jesus is loving and wants to shield us from God’s wrath. In order to satisfy the anger of the holy God, he died in our place. The youngsters left the class believing that God is distant and hostile while Jesus loves us and, as a result, fell victim to punishment by a righteous God.

The man and the Sunday School teacher each have a picture of two gods, one terrible and one tender, with the tender god at the mercy of the terrible.

Thoughtful Christians who understand the doctrine of the Trinity respond: “Not so!” There is one God, not two or three. The doctrine of the Trinity means that as you and I stand before the Creator God who formed us and who at the end will judge us, we face the God who was crucified for us. The God who laid down the Law at Mount Sinai also laid down his life on Calvary.

It makes sense to me that if there is a God outside this universe who has created us and given us an ability to have a relationship with him through Jesus Christ, then this God would not be some God made in our image, but rather would be a God who is incomprehensible, beyond anything we could dream up or imagine.

I would want a God in whom I believe to be so much more complex and supernatural than just a giant person in heaven. This complex and supernatural God is, in fact, the God described in the Bible. And yet this God has not chosen to remain distant and unapproachable. Rather this God has given human beings an opportunity to have a living relationship with the God who spoke and the limitless universe leapt into existence. This God has become one of us in Jesus Christ and he has chosen to live inside of the Christian through his Holy Spirit in order that we might come to know the Father. Here we see the Trinity as not only a divine concept, but also as a personal God who loves us and cares for us deeply.

Do you have a relationship with the Holy Trinity through Jesus Christ? If not, invite him into your life today. Turn away from your sins and seek to follow him.