Posts Tagged ‘Trinity’

Jesus is With Us Till The End

Sunday, May 31st, 2015

Trinity Sunday

Dt 4:32-34, 39-40: Rom 8: 14-17; Mt 28: 16-20

Deacon Larry Brockman

 

“Behold, I am with you always until the end of the age”. This is Jesus promise to each and every one of us.

You know, as Christians, we share in the unique belief in the Incarnation. This means that we believe that God became man in the person of Jesus Christ, and lived and dwelt amongst us as one of us.  He suffered, died, and was buried, only to rise again on Easter. After spending 40 days with his Apostles, He then ascended into heaven. But he left us two very important gifts: The first was the gift of the Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Christ. We will celebrate that gift next week on the feast of Corpus Christi; and the second gift of the Holy Spirit, which we celebrated last weekend on the feast of Pentecost.

Today we celebrate the mystery of the Trinity- the fact that there is just one God, but He is three separate persons- the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  You know, most of us don’t think much about the Trinity.  It’s a mystery that “bends our brains”; it defies reasoning.    How can God be one, and yet still be three distinct persons?

And yet, the Incarnation and the Trinity go hand in hand in defining the uniqueness of Christianity as a Religion. And I’d like to bring up a few things about why that uniqueness is so important to each of us.

You see, most religions believe that God is far above us. They use the word “transcendent” to describe His distance from us. That simply means that God is far above us, has always existed and always will exist; He is infinitely good, knowledgeable, and He created all things.    And so each of us is humbled by the “bigness” of such a God. It would be hard to imagine how to relate to a God who knows everything, and is all good, because he is so far above us.    Where would one begin?

Some religions think God just set things in motion and has left things to run their natural course- and that he is uninvolved. These people are called Deists, and Unitarianism has Deist roots. Other people believe that it takes a special kind of person to communicate with God, a person who divorces himself from the world and all things of the world, because God is a spirit, he is not of this world. He is above the world in all ways.

But Christians have this special gift- the Incarnation, in which God sends Jesus into the world to live as one of us. Jesus is both fully human and fully divine, the second person of the Trinity. And so, the Trinity and the Incarnation are interrelated mysteries.  We are not capable of understanding either of these mysteries. But what they mean for us when we believe in them is very important.

You see, if God’s son Jesus lived amongst us as one of us; and was both human and divine, then God’s Son was not transcendent.  Rather, he was just like one of us.  God became what is called immanent to us by living right there alongside of other human beings in his time.    That means that real people could relate directly to God. They did so directly with Jesus.  And the 4 Gospels record how Jesus taught us to relate to God; to other people in the world, and to the world itself.

While the Incarnation and the Trinity are mysteries; God took away the mystery on how we can all relate to Him. He gave us himself incarnate as Jesus, who was the living example of how humanity can be close to God.  And just to make sure that all people of every age that followed Jesus shared in the immanence of Jesus’ earthly presence, He gave us the Eucharist, Holy Communion, his own Body and Blood  as a sacrament so that the living God, Jesus would be close to everyone after his time as well.

Now he also promised us the second great gift, the Holy Spirit; the breath of life; the comforter. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity, and lives forever. So, if we have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, we will live forever just as the risen Christ lives forever. This, too, is unique to Christianity- the promise of life ever after with the Spirit of God dwelling in us, another sign of the immanence of God in our lives.

And so, let us all be grateful for the mysteries of the Incarnation and the Trinity. We choose to believe without really understanding- we call that Faith. And the fruits of that faith are the two great gifts Jesus left us- Holy Communion and the Holy Spirit.

So, Rejoice, because truly, as Jesus said in the Gospel: “Behold, I am with you always until the end of the age”

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It’s All About the Name!

Sunday, June 19th, 2011

Trinity Sunday

Ex 34: 4b-6, 8-9; 2 Cor 13: 11-13; Jn 3: 16-18

Dc. Larry Brockman

 

It’s all about the name! 

Now, for a moment, consider your own names.  How did you get them and what do they mean?  First, there is the Family name.  The root of some of your names probably refers to an attribute or skill.  I have been told that my family name’s roots are in brick laying skills, for example.  Others are named after their parents- like for example Erickson- son of Eric.  The point is that each person’s name meant something- it was a way to define, to identify, who they were.  As we became more numerous- the family name wasn’t enough to identify us.  There were a whole lot of Smiths and Whites and Carpenters, for example.  And so, we added one or more other names.  These were often chosen to honor someone in our families.  We say, for example that so and so is named after their Grandfather.  Others are named after some hero or popular personality.  And so, identity and honor are two main attributes of names.  That is basically a trend that God instilled in us- because He wanted us to honor and respect His name and identity.   

Now, in the first reading, the Lord comes down out of a cloud and the first thing He does is to proclaim His own name!  He simply says- “Lord”, or in Hebrew “Yahweh”, meaning “I am who am”; the self-existent; the Eternal one.  And then He repeats that name several times for emphasis.  This name was considered so Holy and awesome by the Israelis that they wouldn’t even say it aloud.  And so, we have a hint about why God wants us to know Him by name.  God the Father wants us to know Him, honor Him, and respect Him and to recognize His identity at all times.  In fact, the first several commandments, which were about to be handed down on those stones we heard about, lay it all out for us:  I am your God; have no false Gods; and show me respect by not taking my name in vain and by honoring me on the Sabbath. 

God the Father is the one who is eternal, who existed before anything else, and who will always exist; and the one who made everything.  Indeed, He wants us to know Him for that- who He is and what He has done.  He wants us to know and accept His name!  When you think about how awesome the one and only God is, how can you possibly do otherwise?   

Now God made everything that is, and it was all made out of Love so He could share it with His creation.  Paul reminds us of that in the second reading.  There he greets the Corinthians with a fascinating reference to the Trinity when he says:  “The Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.”  How many times have we heard that- but do we understand it. 

We have just heard how God the Father gave emphasis to His name.  But in the Gospel, importance of the name of God comes up again.  We are told by John that unless we believe in the name of the only Son of God, we cannot be saved.  Now lots of people hang up on this statement.  Are we to take it literally?  First of all, consider what the name “Jesus” means.  This is the name the angel Gabriel told Mary that her child should be named.  And it means- Jehovah, the Lord, is Salvation.  “Christ” means the anointed one, or chosen one.  So Jesus Christ is God from whom Salvation comes; and He is the chosen person in Human form to be the Savior. 

We know that believing in the Name means a couple of things:  It means believing in the identity of the name; and it means respecting the name and giving it honor.   And so it is essential for everyone to believe that the one true God is the Salvation of the World and to respect Him, as symbolized by respecting His name.  Those who do these things believe in His name.  Those who believe in His name will be saved.   

Now we hear that Paul also hopes that the grace of Jesus Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit will be with us.  These are the things that God the Father gave us out of love.  The Grace of Jesus Christ is captured by the life of Jesus Christ- the Gospel.  We need to live the example of that Gospel to be in that grace.  And the Holy Spirit works within us to bring us out of ourselves and to love each other; and share our Christian Joy with others.   

It occurs to me that this is what our families are all about.  Moms and dads share the Love of God and the Grace of Jesus Christ; and through the Spirit dwelling in them, they pass on the name of God and the message of the Gospel to their Children.  The family is the living expression of the Trinity.  And so what better way for us to celebrate Father’s Day than to celebrate the Trinity. 

Our fathers play the role of God the Father in our family.  They are the initiators of new life; they are responsible for loving their spouse and their family; and they act as role models by showing the grace of Jesus Christ as they interact with their Children and the outside world  through the inspiration of the Spirit.   

And so, my wish to fathers out there today this Father’s day is simply this:  The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you Dad’s out there today. 

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