“JESUS IS HOWTHESE THINGS CAN BE”
Saint John 3. 1-15
The Feast of THE HOLY TRINITY: 30 May Anno Domini 2010
Fr Watson SSP
Noah, Christine, & Katie…you three, along with Saint Nicodemus, and all the gathered assembly of Holy Ones, do indeed "bind unto yourselves today the strong Name of the Trinity." For you were already bound into His Body and Blood at the Holy Font and in His Holy Word; and the Word made Flesh. The Father Who sent His only begotten Son to be your Redeemer at Golgotha; to be your Law-Keeper for three decades plus three is the loving Father Who sends Him today to feed you with His true Body and true Blood; and to give you the gift to believe all this all by the Holy Spirit-the "Lord and Giver of Life."
The three of you are miserable sinners; so is everyone else gathered here on this High and Holy Feast Day. God is mercy. Mercy is for the miserable. Holy, + Holy, Holy!
Your sin, there sin, our sin, is that we like Eve, like Adam, don't like receiving what He gives. Old Adam, old nature, daily sinner, wants to take and decide and control and "to be like God."
There are no allahs, vishnus, cosmic consciences, buddhas, monadic pillars of fire that talk only to Jews, or random chance anomalies. There is only God: Father, Son + and Holy Ghost! This is known by Faith and not of works…not of microscopes, mathematical formulae, and chemical analysis.
I cannot explain this mystery. That is why it is called a mystery, a "mysterion," a sacrament. A "god" Who is explainable is a small and tiny thing which can be circumscribed, captured and made to perform like a trick monkey. This mystery is revealed and uncovered by the giver in the way in which He chooses to give; not by the petulant, spoiled child who throws a tantrum because he doesn't have what his stunted ego and passions crave.
Nicodemus had heard the words of Jesus, and the Holy Ghost, God the Third Person, had created nascent faith in his heart. Nicodemus was called by the Holy Spirit and placed in Christ's very presence. This Sanhedrin member's very testimony is accurate. Jesus was Rabbi, Teacher, and ever will be. Catechesis and growth in the Word of God never ceases this side of paradise. And Nicodemus was close when he recognized that no one could do the great signs that Jesus did unless He was from God.
But Jesus is no messenger angel, no super Elijah or Ezekiel, no King David II sent to exterminate all you earthly foes and persecutors. JESUS IS GOD sent to die for your badness and to defeat your real adversaries: death, Satan, the fallen world, and your own sinful SELF. You have met the enemy and HE IS YOU. You have been brought by Spirit into the Light of LIFE (Christ Jesus) to experience the Victory, Joy, Peace and Adoption of sons. Abba, Father.
These heavenly things of the Trinity cannot be seized by intelligence or captured by logic. These awesome ontological REALITIES are not to be manipulated, subjugated, and utilized for earthly health, wealth prosperity, life-style, and glory. These are gifts for the little child. These are presents for the miserable: the bleeding, dirty, hungry, thirsty, dying, dead lambs who are rescued by the mystery of a Shepherd Who gives His life for sheep…and for His enemies: "for I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth."
It is better to adore God than to try and explain Him intoned Philip Melanchthon. It is best to receive the Lord's gifts than to grouse over your inability to plumb the depths of His nature, essence, and being. "Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!"
If the greatest theologian who ever lived can glory in Christ's Cross and acknowledge the unsearchability of God's being, so can you by His Grace.
The Sublime most Blessed Trinity is everywhere in the Hebrew Scriptures in brief glimpses and wonderful Theophanies. Your Savior Rabbi reveals the Heart of the THREE-IN-ONE both in His own Baptism by John and in His ordination sermon to the 12 before His Ascension.
Forget about equilateral triangles, triquetas, shamrocks, apples, and Augustinian wall-charts. Disabuse yourselves of the heretical tri-theism of someday (in Heaven) being able to see the Holy Spirit over there talking to your grandfather, God the Father up at the head table regaling Sts. Peter, Paul, and Luther, while you sit under a tree talking to the Nazarene. NO!
"I tell you Philip, he who has seen ME, has seen the Father." "When the Spirit testifies, He will testify of ME."
Do you want to see the Trinity? Look at your bulletin cover-Nicodemus saw the TRINITY in UNITY and the UNITY in TRINITY when he sat at table with the Christ. Do you want to see the inter-penetrating, sacrificial, giving, love of the Father for the Son, for you, and the Son's love for His Father and for you; and believe it? Look at the Crucifix.
"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life."
That crucifix (what it represents) gives you God in Word, and in Holy Regeneration, and in Eucharist. That God/Man gives you Himself. He who has the Son, has the Father and the Spirit.
Confess boldly the Athanasian Creed! Well and good. But pray to the Father in + the Son by the Holy Spirit. Sing those Psalms with their wonderful Trinitarian conclusions. And remember your Baptisms…..
"For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things, to Whom
be glory for ever."
In the Name of The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost