Isaiah 6:1-8 Romans 8:12-17 John 3:1-17 Canticle 13

I speak in the name of the one God:  God the Father, the giver of love; God the Son, who is the Beloved; and God the Holy Spirit, who IS the love given and received, united in relationship.  God, the Holy Trinity – the Lover, the Beloved, and the Love between them.

Blessed Trinity Sunday – our third major feast day this month.  Trinity Sunday is celebrated on the Sunday following the Day of Pentecost – the 50^thday of Easter, which we celebrated last week as we focused on the discernable presence of the Holy Spirit descending to rest upon the apostles on the first Christian Pentecost.  Now, our triangle representing the Holy Trinity – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – is figuratively complete.  So, we set aside this extra Sunday to celebrate that completion and unity.

It is important to note that the Doctrine of the Trinity is not specifically Biblical.  In fact, the Doctrine of the Trinity was first defined in the early centuries of the Church – a means of conceptualizing the Biblical references to God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  The doctrine, thus, is not conceptualized in the Bible, though it is implied in the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ baptism, for instance, at which the accompanying voice of the Father and the attendance of the spirit descending like a dove alert us to the presence of the 3 persons of the Trinity.  And, whenever we worship, we affirm in our creeds that the three-in-one is reality that has been present since before the beginning.

St. Augustine of Hippo is credited with the illustration of the Trinity as Father – the Lover, Son – the Beloved, and Spirit – the Love that is exchanged between the Lover and the Beloved.  And, Gregory of Nyssa contributed the imagery of the rainbow – light from light in which the distinction between the colors is non-discernable – each color blending gently into the next, just as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit blend one into the other in the eternal unconditional love of God.

Love has certainly been the focus since our now-internationally famous Presiding Bishop has been called upon to share his message of love again and again following his sermon at St. George’s Chapel – Windsor.  On this Memorial Day weekend, we honor the self-sacrificing love and protection of hundreds of thousands of veterans living and deceased, remembering especially those who gave their ultimate sacrifice of body and mind.

Love is a quite overused word, much cheapened by its wide spectrum of usage.  We love chocolate.  We love the dress.  We love the ocean. We love the weather – sometimes.  I love the smell of lavender.  And, you know the Allstate commercial about the dad who’s driving along bragging about getting the safe driving bonus check because he doesn’t use his cell phone while he drives?  As he chatters on about his selfish use of the bonus check, he is unheard and ignored by his wife and children who are hooked up to their electronics.  I just lovethat commercial.

It amazes me that the English language is such an enormous melting pot of the world’s languages and yet we have no real adequate distinction between the word we use to describe our trivial amusements compared to the same word that encompasses our deepest affections.  Lost in the triviality, we too rarely reflect on the complexity of love – love, which is the essence of creation, the essence of God, the essence of the three-in-one, which we celebrate today.

Lover, Beloved, and Love.

Under the cover of night, to the frightened and confused Nicodemus, Jesus uttered the words that we hear so often, we subconsciously trivialize their meaning:  “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”  Scottish professor, the Rev. Thomas F. Torrance seeks to explain the magnitude of this love in his bookThe Mediation of Christ in which he takes the love of God in Christ even further.

Jesus Christ died for you precisely because you are sinful and utterly unworthy of him, and has thereby already made you his own before and apart from your ever believing in him.  He has bound you to himself by his love in a way that he will never let you go, for even if you refuse him and damn yourself in hell his love will never cease.

This is love beyond triviality; this is love manifested in the three persons of the Holy Trinity.

In a sermon by Joel Miller of the Columbus Mennonite Church, we read: “Experiencing the Trinity is a call to participate in the Divine life.  God becoming flesh, the Lover giving to the Beloved and the Beloved returning the love, the way that Jesus has set before us.  God seeking to be known as God through us.”

“The Lover giving to the Beloved and the Beloved returning the love.”  In the last days of his earthly ministry, Jesus, the beloved Son, affirmed in his prayers to his loving Father that he had lost none of those entrusted to him.  With the Son’s ascension to be with the Father, he promised us that the Holy Spirit would descend to carry on that relationship of love – God being known through us for all eternity. We are never lost to God; we are never lost to any who truly love us.

Professor Torrance explains further:

One God.  Lover, Beloved, Love – Father, Son, Holy Spirit:
God loves you so utterly and completely that he has given himself for you in Jesus Christ his beloved Son, and has thereby pledged his very being as God for your salvation.  In Jesus Christ God has actualised his unconditional love for you in your human nature in such a once for all way, that he cannot go back upon it without undoing the Incarnation and the Cross and thereby denying himself.

Nothing has meaning without love.  “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”  God has pledged his very being as God for your salvation.  “Even if you refuse him and damn yourself in hell his love will never cease.”

Trinity Sunday

Memorial Day Sunday