The Trinity
Sermon
Sermons On The First Readings
Series I, Cycle B
Today we celebrate the Festival of the Holy Trinity. God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. In the Trinity we also celebrate a God who exists "in relationship" -- to us, to all of creation, and even within God's very Self. Following the model of a children's sermon, today we will focus on a visual aid for adults: the cross, as a symbol of the Trinity. Maybe you've never thought of the cross as a symbol of the Trinity, but rather as a symbol just for Jesus. But think about it: the vertical beam symbolizing God the Father, the Creator, the transcendent aspect of God, coming down to earth; in other words, the vertical dimension of our relationship with God. The horizontal beam of the cross can symbolize the Holy Spirit, who extends horizontally, living and breathing in all that is. The point of intersection, the heart of the cross, symbolizes Jesus Christ, whose heart loved so much that he gave his life there on that cross for you and for me and for all.
When we cross ourselves, which by the way is okay for non-Catholics to do, we do so as we say, "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit," or, "In the name of God our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer." But I once heard a Lutheran pastor describe it a different way. He said when we cross ourselves, we should pray, "May God be in my mind, in my heart, and in my whole being, Amen."
Raise your hands. How many of you think of God in terms of the first aspect of the Trinity -- pray to and relate to God as your Father/Creator? How many of you think of God, relate and pray to God in terms of the second aspect of the Trinity, Jesus Christ? How many of you think of God, relate and pray to God in terms of the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit?
Ah-ha! The Holy Spirit always gets short shrift! It is the aspect of the Trinity which we understand the least.
Today, we will briefly explore each of these three aspects of the Trinity, paying particular attention to the often neglected aspect, that of the Holy Spirit.
We see, in fact, the three Aspects of the Trinity -- in each of our three readings assigned for this day.
First let us consider the Vertical Arm of the Cross: God the Father, God our Creator. This is the part of the Trinity we focus on in the first article of the Apostle's Creed. Say it with me: "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth."
How many of you remember Martin Luther's explanation to the first article of the Apostle's Creed? When I was in confirmation, we had to memorize it. It begins with, "I believe that God created me and all that exists." God -- the Creator -- lives in relationship with all of creation, and within Godself.
In today's passage from the book of the prophet Isaiah, it is this first aspect of the Trinity which is revealed: the Almighty God, powerful, transcendent -- of which we, like Isaiah, stand in awe. In Isaiah's magnificent vision of our Creator God, God is surrounded by attendant cherubim and seraphim, seated upon a majestic throne, and arrayed in glorious splendor. Before such a God we fall to our knees in fear (Hebrew literally, "awe") and trembling. This Creator aspect of God pours forth in the majesty of creation: the Grand Canyon, depths of the ocean, Mount Everest, moon, stars, constellations, planets, galaxies, and in each newborn child, as Shakespeare said, "So fresh from God."
This is I AM. This is the God who always was, and is, and is to come! Wow!
Young children, I have noticed, connect deeply with this aspect of God, the Creator dimension of the Trinity. They live in constant awe of the mystery and miracle of God coming to us in God's creation. They spend hours watching insects at work, cloud formations moving across the sky, what we would think of as the most ordinary of rocks, wind, rain, snow, sand, dirt. If you want to grow in your relationship with God as Creator, explore God's creation with a young child.
Every year, when our confirmation program begins, I conclude our first class with a time of devotion, focusing on Psalm 8. I take the youth outside, make them lie flat on their backs, and look up at the night sky, as I recite the words: "O, Lord, my Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! ... when I consider the heavens, the work of your hands, the moon and the stars, which you have made ... what are we mere human beings that you are mindful of us, and yet you have made us just a little lower than the angels? ... O, Lord, my Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!" As these fourteen and fifteen year olds gaze up at the stars, I tell them, "If this is all you remember from confirmation class, it will be sufficient: that the One who created all of this created you and lives within you -- the power that created all of this is within you -- and you have access to this power every moment for the living of your life!"
Ahhh ... God, our Creator.
Let us for a moment skip over Jesus, the second article of the Apostle's Creed and consider the Holy Spirit, the aspect of the Trinity that fewest people relate to. I think this aspect of the Trinity becomes important to us later in life. In Hebrew the Holy Spirit is a feminine word, "she," ruach. In Greek the Holy Spirit is a neuter word, but a feminine concept, pneuma, "it;" for some reason usually translated "he." In both Hebrew and Greek the same word is used to mean: "wind, breath, and spirit."
Wind. What does that teach us about the Holy Spirit? Can you see wind? Touch it? Grab hold of it? No, but you can feel it and you can see the effects of it. The things it moves. You can see and feel its power. Just like the Holy Spirit. It can be as blasting as a hurricane, or as gentle, subtle, calm, and soothing as a refreshing summer breeze.
Without the Spirit, we are flat and lifeless, like an empty windsock or a sail hanging limp, but with it, we are like a windsock filled with a summer breeze, or a sail, filled with a mighty wind. We are alive, beautiful, full, vibrant, soaring, sailing. There's no stopping us!
In addition to meaning "wind," the word for Spirit also means "breath." Take a deep breath. If Spirit means breath, where is the Holy Spirit?
Inside you! Within you, and every living, breathing creature! It is as close to you as your next breath! In fact, every breath you take is the Holy Spirit living and breathing within you! And breathing out from you into the world all around you! The One who created all of this lives and breathes within you and me, sustaining us every moment of our day.
The third article of the Apostles' Creed, which we say week after week, is all about the work of the Holy Spirit. Say it with me: "I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting." In other words, the church teaches that all that "stuff" is the work of the Holy Spirit. The work of the church throughout the ages; the lives and teaching and example of the saints or holy ones; the forgiveness that is forever sought by aching, repentant hearts, and poured out again and again; the power of the resurrected Christ at work in your life and mine; all this is what the Holy spirit does!
In Luther's explanation to the third article of the Apostles' Creed, to the working of the Holy Spirit, he says, "I believe that I cannot by my own understanding or effort even believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him, but the Holy Spirit has called me through the Gospel, enlightened me with his (her) gifts, and sanctified and kept me in the true faith. In the same way the Holy Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth...." In other words, you and I could say that the only reason we are even here today is because the Holy Spirit stirred our hearts, called us here, calls to us through the Word, through the sacrament, working within us to bring us unto Godself.
I can remember one summer when I was about twenty. I lived in Cambridge to attend the summer language program at Harvard Divinity School -- "Theological German in ten weeks." That summer, I battled a demon I had battled for many years: the demon of depression. I don't think it was just the "Theological German in ten weeks." I remember being so deeply depressed that I could not even pray. So I journaled -- with many sobs and sighs and groans. I had never felt so far away from God. In despair, I reached for God's Word. I somehow stumbled upon Romans 8:26: "We do not even know how to pray as we ought, but the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with sighs/groans too deep for words." I realized that my journaling was prayer! I realized that the Holy Spirit was living and breathing and sighing and groaning, and crying out to God for me!
And so the Holy Spirit even leads us back home when we, like the prodigal child, feel that we have wandered too far away.
God the Son: Jesus. The intersection, the heart, of the cross. The living, pumping, breathing, feeling, loving heart of God, the human aspect of God, who wants to live in relationship, as all humans do, who wants to live in relationship with you.
The members of our confirmation classes admit, most youth admit, that this human aspect of the Trinity is the one they relate to the most. Partly because, as a contemporary song goes, "Jesus is way cool," partly because Jesus embodies grace, partly because they are at an age when what is most important to them are their peers, and so they can relate to Jesus as a kind of "peer," as a brother, friend, wise teacher or guide, or even as a counter cultural radical -- something that's always been appealing to youth!
The second article of the Apostles' Creed is all about Jesus. Say it with me: "I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, and born of the virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. On the third day he rose again. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again to judge the living and the dead."
Those of us who had to memorize Luther's Small Catechism remember his explanation to the second article. I can remember these words moving my heart when I was a teenager struggling to memorize them for my confirmation: "I believe that Jesus Christ -- true God, Son of the Father from eternity, and true man, born of the virgin Mary -- is my Lord. At great cost he has saved and redeemed me, a lost and condemned person. He has freed me from sin, death, and the power of the devil -- not with silver or gold, but with his holy and precious blood and his innocent suffering and death. All this he has done that I may be his own."
I can remember being cut to the core, and thinking, "Wow! I sure must be important. For Jesus to do all that for me."
Jesus did all that for you. Grabbing hold of that radically changes the way we look at ourselves, and the way we live our lives.
Many years ago, a teenager named "Hannah" was in my confirmation class. I remember her making an appointment to come and speak to me privately. Her face was chalky white with anxiety. She stuttered and stumbled as she told me of a party she'd gone to recently, of drinking at the party. Of drinking way too much at the party. Of getting so drunk that she lost her sense of good judgment, and went into a room with a boy, and wasn't quite sure what happened in that room with that boy.
Hannah was a wreck about what she had done. She was a jumble of guilt and tears, remorse and embarrassment. In gulping sobs she asked if I thought God would forgive her.
"Hannah," I spoke gently, "remember all the stories about people coming to Jesus, people who had made mistakes, people who had done things they wished they hadn't, people who had sinned, people who had regrets, people who felt guilty?" She sniffled and looked at me. "Yes ..." she said tentatively. "Well, if they were truly sorry for what they had done, and asked Jesus to forgive them, did he ever turn anyone away?" Her eyes caught on, like a trapped animal catching a glimpse of escape. "Hannah, if they were truly sorry, Jesus said to them, as he says to you right now, 'My child, your sins are forgiven, go in peace.' "
We all screw up. We all say and do things we wish we hadn't done. We all hurt others. Sometimes on purpose. Sometimes without intending to. "No one is righteous, no not one," God's Word reminds us (Romans 3:10). We are all in need of God's forgiveness ... and of God's grace.
When Jesus walked this earth, again and again, he engaged people, inviting them into relationship with him. Sometimes in those relationships he comforted the disturbed; sometimes in those relationships he disturbed the comfortable. He related to each one, knowing what lay in the heart of each.
Then and now Jesus embodied grace.
Grace is a peculiar concept in our world where nothing is free, and strings are always attached. We Lutherans need to realize that the greatest gift we have to share in our world today is the major belief/tenet of the Lutheran Church: justification by grace through faith. I emphasize this concept of grace at each new members' class, where people from all different church backgrounds, and many with no church background, find it difficult to comprehend. In our world we stress working hard, striving to achieve, getting what you deserve, making your own way, self-help. At our new members' classes I begin teaching the basics of Lutheran theology by saying, "Here at First Lutheran, we like to start by giving you a free gift."1 You wouldn't believe the looks of suspicion! I then hand each new member a beautifully wrapped package, in which are a prayer book, an introduction to Lutheran theology, a pen with Luther's rose on it, etc. I then joke with people, acknowledging their suspicion of my "free gift." But I go on to illustrate that that is precisely the heart of Lutheran theology -- the heart of the gospel -- the Good News of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. God comes to us in Jesus, offering us the free gift of forgiveness, offering to save our necks from the messes we've gotten ourselves into, offering to turn our lives around and let us have a completely new beginning. Offering to live in a deep, intimate, passionate, exciting relationship with us. Offering this to us not because we've been perfect and deserve it, but because God desires this fullness of life for us. Because grace happens.
This is the grace in which we stand.
So ... what do these brief and cursory ponderings of the Holy Trinity tell us about God?
That God is Mystery -- unfathomable -- deeper and wider than our minds can ever comprehend.
That God -- even within Godself -- within God's very nature -- exists in community -- in relationship -- and so wants to be in relationship with you and with me.
One of the ways "sin" is described in contemporary theology is as whatever separates us from God, from one another, and from creation. "Sin," therefore is whatever it is that isolates us and fractures the relationship between us and God, between you and me, between us and any other part of creation infused with the breath of the Spirit.
In the passage from Isaiah we see Isaiah struggling with the sin of "I'm not good enough." You and I, like Isaiah, often feel a sense of low or no self-worth. We think, "Who am I, God, that you would want to send me? I can't share your message of hope with others. I'm not good enough. I'm in bondage to sin and I cannot free myself." The sin, the guilt, the addiction, the shame, the missing the mark, the failure although you tried really hard. All of this separates us from God, blocks us from living in intimate relationship with God.
But God Almighty, our Father/Creator, who made us in God's own image and likeness, who wants to be in relationship with us, reaches out to us, touches our lips -- our hearts, our minds, our hands, our lives -- and sets us free from the sin of not feeling good enough -- and makes us worthy. So Isaiah, and you and I, can stand before God Almighty and say, "Here I am, Lord, send me."
In the passage from Romans 8:26 we see that the Holy Spirit comes to us when we are groaning in a prison of anguish, sadness, grieving, depression. The Holy Spirit comes to us when we feel so isolated that we cannot even pray as we ought, and the Holy Spirit intercedes for us, prays in us and for us with sighs, with groans too deep for words. When we groan and cry out to God in anguish, that is the Holy Spirit who has been within us all along, praying for us, and showing us the way out of ourselves. The Holy Spirit calls us through the Word, through the sacraments, through the church -- that is, through one another -- working to bring us home to God, and back to the One who is as close to us as our next breath.
Finally, we've learned that Jesus invites us to live in relationship with him, just as Jesus, in the famous, pivotal story of Nicodemus, invites Nicodemus to live in relationship with him. Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a "religious one," a "churchgoer," like you and me. In fact Nicodemus was a leader of the temple, a member of the Sanhedrin (the Council of seventy religious elders), the one whom everyone looked at and said, "Now he's got his life all together." This guy, like you and me this day, was in the prison of "there's got to be more to life than this." Do you know that prison? You come to church. You sit here. You've always done it. You're a "good Christian," but something's wrong, something's missing, you can't put your finger on it. "There's got to be more to life than this" is what's separating you from God, and others, and from God's creation.
Nicodemus, we read, comes to Jesus "by night." In other words, in secret because, you see, he doesn't want all those other "churchy" people to to know he's living a life separated from God and others. It's okay. Jesus doesn't mind. We can come to him in secret. It can be just between him and you as you come to him in secret ... now ... in your heart. The people sitting beside you don't even have to know that you are coming to him. Come to him, with whatever it is that is separating you from God and others, with whatever prison you are living in, and ask him to set you free.
This day he promises you and me, as he did Nicodemus, that in him we can be set free from our sin, our separation, our prison -- no matter what that prison is. This day, like Nicodemus, like person after person whom the living Christ has encountered, we can be born anew, born again, born from above. "For God so loved you that God gave God's only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16).
Come to Christ now, touch the waters of baptism to your head, and make a cross, asking the Triune God -- the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer -- to be in your mind, in your heart, and in your whole being. Then come forward, receive his body broken on the cross for you, his blood shed for you in order that you might be set free, forgiven, and given the gift of new life. In order that you this day might be born from above. Come, receive the gifts of grace, the gifts of new life. Amen.
____________
1. This idea was given to me by my friend, Reverend Jim Hazelwood, pastor of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, Charlestown, Rhode Island.
When we cross ourselves, which by the way is okay for non-Catholics to do, we do so as we say, "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit," or, "In the name of God our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer." But I once heard a Lutheran pastor describe it a different way. He said when we cross ourselves, we should pray, "May God be in my mind, in my heart, and in my whole being, Amen."
Raise your hands. How many of you think of God in terms of the first aspect of the Trinity -- pray to and relate to God as your Father/Creator? How many of you think of God, relate and pray to God in terms of the second aspect of the Trinity, Jesus Christ? How many of you think of God, relate and pray to God in terms of the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit?
Ah-ha! The Holy Spirit always gets short shrift! It is the aspect of the Trinity which we understand the least.
Today, we will briefly explore each of these three aspects of the Trinity, paying particular attention to the often neglected aspect, that of the Holy Spirit.
We see, in fact, the three Aspects of the Trinity -- in each of our three readings assigned for this day.
First let us consider the Vertical Arm of the Cross: God the Father, God our Creator. This is the part of the Trinity we focus on in the first article of the Apostle's Creed. Say it with me: "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth."
How many of you remember Martin Luther's explanation to the first article of the Apostle's Creed? When I was in confirmation, we had to memorize it. It begins with, "I believe that God created me and all that exists." God -- the Creator -- lives in relationship with all of creation, and within Godself.
In today's passage from the book of the prophet Isaiah, it is this first aspect of the Trinity which is revealed: the Almighty God, powerful, transcendent -- of which we, like Isaiah, stand in awe. In Isaiah's magnificent vision of our Creator God, God is surrounded by attendant cherubim and seraphim, seated upon a majestic throne, and arrayed in glorious splendor. Before such a God we fall to our knees in fear (Hebrew literally, "awe") and trembling. This Creator aspect of God pours forth in the majesty of creation: the Grand Canyon, depths of the ocean, Mount Everest, moon, stars, constellations, planets, galaxies, and in each newborn child, as Shakespeare said, "So fresh from God."
This is I AM. This is the God who always was, and is, and is to come! Wow!
Young children, I have noticed, connect deeply with this aspect of God, the Creator dimension of the Trinity. They live in constant awe of the mystery and miracle of God coming to us in God's creation. They spend hours watching insects at work, cloud formations moving across the sky, what we would think of as the most ordinary of rocks, wind, rain, snow, sand, dirt. If you want to grow in your relationship with God as Creator, explore God's creation with a young child.
Every year, when our confirmation program begins, I conclude our first class with a time of devotion, focusing on Psalm 8. I take the youth outside, make them lie flat on their backs, and look up at the night sky, as I recite the words: "O, Lord, my Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! ... when I consider the heavens, the work of your hands, the moon and the stars, which you have made ... what are we mere human beings that you are mindful of us, and yet you have made us just a little lower than the angels? ... O, Lord, my Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!" As these fourteen and fifteen year olds gaze up at the stars, I tell them, "If this is all you remember from confirmation class, it will be sufficient: that the One who created all of this created you and lives within you -- the power that created all of this is within you -- and you have access to this power every moment for the living of your life!"
Ahhh ... God, our Creator.
Let us for a moment skip over Jesus, the second article of the Apostle's Creed and consider the Holy Spirit, the aspect of the Trinity that fewest people relate to. I think this aspect of the Trinity becomes important to us later in life. In Hebrew the Holy Spirit is a feminine word, "she," ruach. In Greek the Holy Spirit is a neuter word, but a feminine concept, pneuma, "it;" for some reason usually translated "he." In both Hebrew and Greek the same word is used to mean: "wind, breath, and spirit."
Wind. What does that teach us about the Holy Spirit? Can you see wind? Touch it? Grab hold of it? No, but you can feel it and you can see the effects of it. The things it moves. You can see and feel its power. Just like the Holy Spirit. It can be as blasting as a hurricane, or as gentle, subtle, calm, and soothing as a refreshing summer breeze.
Without the Spirit, we are flat and lifeless, like an empty windsock or a sail hanging limp, but with it, we are like a windsock filled with a summer breeze, or a sail, filled with a mighty wind. We are alive, beautiful, full, vibrant, soaring, sailing. There's no stopping us!
In addition to meaning "wind," the word for Spirit also means "breath." Take a deep breath. If Spirit means breath, where is the Holy Spirit?
Inside you! Within you, and every living, breathing creature! It is as close to you as your next breath! In fact, every breath you take is the Holy Spirit living and breathing within you! And breathing out from you into the world all around you! The One who created all of this lives and breathes within you and me, sustaining us every moment of our day.
The third article of the Apostles' Creed, which we say week after week, is all about the work of the Holy Spirit. Say it with me: "I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting." In other words, the church teaches that all that "stuff" is the work of the Holy Spirit. The work of the church throughout the ages; the lives and teaching and example of the saints or holy ones; the forgiveness that is forever sought by aching, repentant hearts, and poured out again and again; the power of the resurrected Christ at work in your life and mine; all this is what the Holy spirit does!
In Luther's explanation to the third article of the Apostles' Creed, to the working of the Holy Spirit, he says, "I believe that I cannot by my own understanding or effort even believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him, but the Holy Spirit has called me through the Gospel, enlightened me with his (her) gifts, and sanctified and kept me in the true faith. In the same way the Holy Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth...." In other words, you and I could say that the only reason we are even here today is because the Holy Spirit stirred our hearts, called us here, calls to us through the Word, through the sacrament, working within us to bring us unto Godself.
I can remember one summer when I was about twenty. I lived in Cambridge to attend the summer language program at Harvard Divinity School -- "Theological German in ten weeks." That summer, I battled a demon I had battled for many years: the demon of depression. I don't think it was just the "Theological German in ten weeks." I remember being so deeply depressed that I could not even pray. So I journaled -- with many sobs and sighs and groans. I had never felt so far away from God. In despair, I reached for God's Word. I somehow stumbled upon Romans 8:26: "We do not even know how to pray as we ought, but the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with sighs/groans too deep for words." I realized that my journaling was prayer! I realized that the Holy Spirit was living and breathing and sighing and groaning, and crying out to God for me!
And so the Holy Spirit even leads us back home when we, like the prodigal child, feel that we have wandered too far away.
God the Son: Jesus. The intersection, the heart, of the cross. The living, pumping, breathing, feeling, loving heart of God, the human aspect of God, who wants to live in relationship, as all humans do, who wants to live in relationship with you.
The members of our confirmation classes admit, most youth admit, that this human aspect of the Trinity is the one they relate to the most. Partly because, as a contemporary song goes, "Jesus is way cool," partly because Jesus embodies grace, partly because they are at an age when what is most important to them are their peers, and so they can relate to Jesus as a kind of "peer," as a brother, friend, wise teacher or guide, or even as a counter cultural radical -- something that's always been appealing to youth!
The second article of the Apostles' Creed is all about Jesus. Say it with me: "I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, and born of the virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. On the third day he rose again. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again to judge the living and the dead."
Those of us who had to memorize Luther's Small Catechism remember his explanation to the second article. I can remember these words moving my heart when I was a teenager struggling to memorize them for my confirmation: "I believe that Jesus Christ -- true God, Son of the Father from eternity, and true man, born of the virgin Mary -- is my Lord. At great cost he has saved and redeemed me, a lost and condemned person. He has freed me from sin, death, and the power of the devil -- not with silver or gold, but with his holy and precious blood and his innocent suffering and death. All this he has done that I may be his own."
I can remember being cut to the core, and thinking, "Wow! I sure must be important. For Jesus to do all that for me."
Jesus did all that for you. Grabbing hold of that radically changes the way we look at ourselves, and the way we live our lives.
Many years ago, a teenager named "Hannah" was in my confirmation class. I remember her making an appointment to come and speak to me privately. Her face was chalky white with anxiety. She stuttered and stumbled as she told me of a party she'd gone to recently, of drinking at the party. Of drinking way too much at the party. Of getting so drunk that she lost her sense of good judgment, and went into a room with a boy, and wasn't quite sure what happened in that room with that boy.
Hannah was a wreck about what she had done. She was a jumble of guilt and tears, remorse and embarrassment. In gulping sobs she asked if I thought God would forgive her.
"Hannah," I spoke gently, "remember all the stories about people coming to Jesus, people who had made mistakes, people who had done things they wished they hadn't, people who had sinned, people who had regrets, people who felt guilty?" She sniffled and looked at me. "Yes ..." she said tentatively. "Well, if they were truly sorry for what they had done, and asked Jesus to forgive them, did he ever turn anyone away?" Her eyes caught on, like a trapped animal catching a glimpse of escape. "Hannah, if they were truly sorry, Jesus said to them, as he says to you right now, 'My child, your sins are forgiven, go in peace.' "
We all screw up. We all say and do things we wish we hadn't done. We all hurt others. Sometimes on purpose. Sometimes without intending to. "No one is righteous, no not one," God's Word reminds us (Romans 3:10). We are all in need of God's forgiveness ... and of God's grace.
When Jesus walked this earth, again and again, he engaged people, inviting them into relationship with him. Sometimes in those relationships he comforted the disturbed; sometimes in those relationships he disturbed the comfortable. He related to each one, knowing what lay in the heart of each.
Then and now Jesus embodied grace.
Grace is a peculiar concept in our world where nothing is free, and strings are always attached. We Lutherans need to realize that the greatest gift we have to share in our world today is the major belief/tenet of the Lutheran Church: justification by grace through faith. I emphasize this concept of grace at each new members' class, where people from all different church backgrounds, and many with no church background, find it difficult to comprehend. In our world we stress working hard, striving to achieve, getting what you deserve, making your own way, self-help. At our new members' classes I begin teaching the basics of Lutheran theology by saying, "Here at First Lutheran, we like to start by giving you a free gift."1 You wouldn't believe the looks of suspicion! I then hand each new member a beautifully wrapped package, in which are a prayer book, an introduction to Lutheran theology, a pen with Luther's rose on it, etc. I then joke with people, acknowledging their suspicion of my "free gift." But I go on to illustrate that that is precisely the heart of Lutheran theology -- the heart of the gospel -- the Good News of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. God comes to us in Jesus, offering us the free gift of forgiveness, offering to save our necks from the messes we've gotten ourselves into, offering to turn our lives around and let us have a completely new beginning. Offering to live in a deep, intimate, passionate, exciting relationship with us. Offering this to us not because we've been perfect and deserve it, but because God desires this fullness of life for us. Because grace happens.
This is the grace in which we stand.
So ... what do these brief and cursory ponderings of the Holy Trinity tell us about God?
That God is Mystery -- unfathomable -- deeper and wider than our minds can ever comprehend.
That God -- even within Godself -- within God's very nature -- exists in community -- in relationship -- and so wants to be in relationship with you and with me.
One of the ways "sin" is described in contemporary theology is as whatever separates us from God, from one another, and from creation. "Sin," therefore is whatever it is that isolates us and fractures the relationship between us and God, between you and me, between us and any other part of creation infused with the breath of the Spirit.
In the passage from Isaiah we see Isaiah struggling with the sin of "I'm not good enough." You and I, like Isaiah, often feel a sense of low or no self-worth. We think, "Who am I, God, that you would want to send me? I can't share your message of hope with others. I'm not good enough. I'm in bondage to sin and I cannot free myself." The sin, the guilt, the addiction, the shame, the missing the mark, the failure although you tried really hard. All of this separates us from God, blocks us from living in intimate relationship with God.
But God Almighty, our Father/Creator, who made us in God's own image and likeness, who wants to be in relationship with us, reaches out to us, touches our lips -- our hearts, our minds, our hands, our lives -- and sets us free from the sin of not feeling good enough -- and makes us worthy. So Isaiah, and you and I, can stand before God Almighty and say, "Here I am, Lord, send me."
In the passage from Romans 8:26 we see that the Holy Spirit comes to us when we are groaning in a prison of anguish, sadness, grieving, depression. The Holy Spirit comes to us when we feel so isolated that we cannot even pray as we ought, and the Holy Spirit intercedes for us, prays in us and for us with sighs, with groans too deep for words. When we groan and cry out to God in anguish, that is the Holy Spirit who has been within us all along, praying for us, and showing us the way out of ourselves. The Holy Spirit calls us through the Word, through the sacraments, through the church -- that is, through one another -- working to bring us home to God, and back to the One who is as close to us as our next breath.
Finally, we've learned that Jesus invites us to live in relationship with him, just as Jesus, in the famous, pivotal story of Nicodemus, invites Nicodemus to live in relationship with him. Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a "religious one," a "churchgoer," like you and me. In fact Nicodemus was a leader of the temple, a member of the Sanhedrin (the Council of seventy religious elders), the one whom everyone looked at and said, "Now he's got his life all together." This guy, like you and me this day, was in the prison of "there's got to be more to life than this." Do you know that prison? You come to church. You sit here. You've always done it. You're a "good Christian," but something's wrong, something's missing, you can't put your finger on it. "There's got to be more to life than this" is what's separating you from God, and others, and from God's creation.
Nicodemus, we read, comes to Jesus "by night." In other words, in secret because, you see, he doesn't want all those other "churchy" people to to know he's living a life separated from God and others. It's okay. Jesus doesn't mind. We can come to him in secret. It can be just between him and you as you come to him in secret ... now ... in your heart. The people sitting beside you don't even have to know that you are coming to him. Come to him, with whatever it is that is separating you from God and others, with whatever prison you are living in, and ask him to set you free.
This day he promises you and me, as he did Nicodemus, that in him we can be set free from our sin, our separation, our prison -- no matter what that prison is. This day, like Nicodemus, like person after person whom the living Christ has encountered, we can be born anew, born again, born from above. "For God so loved you that God gave God's only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16).
Come to Christ now, touch the waters of baptism to your head, and make a cross, asking the Triune God -- the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer -- to be in your mind, in your heart, and in your whole being. Then come forward, receive his body broken on the cross for you, his blood shed for you in order that you might be set free, forgiven, and given the gift of new life. In order that you this day might be born from above. Come, receive the gifts of grace, the gifts of new life. Amen.
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1. This idea was given to me by my friend, Reverend Jim Hazelwood, pastor of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, Charlestown, Rhode Island.
