Tag Archives: Trinity

Matthew 28: 16-20 A Sent Community and a Present Lord

Fra Angelico, Fresco in the Cloister of Mark in Florenz (1437-1445)

Matthew 28: 16-20

¹⁶ Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. ¹⁷ When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted[1]. ¹⁸ And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,[2] baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” [3]

This is Matthew’s unique and well-known conclusion to the gospel narrative, often called the Great Commission. This sending of Jesus’ disciples to all the nations brings together several themes from throughout the gospel of Matthew and puts one final exclamation point on the identity of Jesus for the gospel. These words, which have been influential for the church’s sense of mission and its development of a trinitarian language to talk about the experience of God in both Jesus and the Spirit, come with the expectation of these disciples and those who follow them forming communities that can practice the type of life that Jesus points to throughout the gospel. These communities, like the disciples who form them, will be places where the risen Christ can be worshipped but where doubt can coexist with that worship. These sent disciples remain ‘little faith ones’ who still need Christ’s presence as they go about their mission of making disciples and teaching until this eon ends and the kingdom of heaven is brought fully to earth.

Mountains have in Matthew’s gospel serve as places where the identity of Christ is revealed, the followers of Jesus are taught, and the kingdom of heaven is realized through healing and feeding. Previously on a mountain during the temptation (4:8) the devil attempted to challenge Jesus’ identity as the Son of God, and during the transfiguration (17:1-9) the divine voice affirms Jesus’ identity as, “My Son, the Beloved.”[4] The location of the mountaintop becomes a place where the disciples now learn that Jesus has been given all authority in heaven and on earth and that his identity as Son is now included with the baptismal naming of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The mountain is also a place of teaching in Matthew’s gospel, especially in reference the Sermon on Mount (Matthew 5-7). Now on the mountain these disciples who are sent to make disciples are to take the teaching they received to instruct the communities they will form in obedience to the commands of Christ. For Matthew, mountains are a place where people come to know the identity, authority and teaching of Christ and at this final sending from the mountaintop Jesus’ identity, authority and teaching are confirmed and to be taught to a new generation of disciples.

The disciples have come after hearing the message delivered by Mary Magdalene and the other Mary. The eleven traveled to Galilee and see Jesus and bow down to worship and doubt at the same time. This is only the second time in Matthew’s gospel where the word doubt has appeared,[5] and doubt and worship were paired in that occurrence as well. In Matthew 14:22-33, when Jesus walks on the water towards the disciples in the boat and Peter comes to Jesus on the water, Jesus says to Peter, “little faith one, why (have you entered) into doubt?” (my translation) As I mentioned in that section, I believe that instead of castigating Peter for experiencing doubt, perhaps he is reassuring Peter (and ‘little faith ones’ throughout the ages) that he indeed is ‘God with us’ in the midst of the storm. Now this is reinforced by the use of the word diatazo here on the mountain in Galilee after the resurrection where the disciples doubt is paired with the encouragement “I am with you always, to the end of the age. When Jesus and Peter returned to the boat the disciples worshipped, and here on the mountain they worship as well. Being a ‘little faith one’ or ‘one who doubts’ does not exclude one from being a disciple who can worship the experience of ‘God with us’ in Jesus. As M. Eugene Boring aptly states,

but they doubted…represents Matthew’s own theological understanding of the meaning of discipleship, which is always a matter of “little faith,” faith that by its nature is not the same as cocksureness, but incorporates doubts within itself in the act of worship. (NIB VIII,502)

Several English translations indicate that ‘some’ doubt, but in the Greek the indication is that all share this doubt. The resurrection event did not generate ‘perfect faith’ among the disciples, but their ‘little faith’ was enough to understand that the proper response was worship and obedience.

Throughout the gospel we have seen people bow down and worship Jesus. While the word here can simply mean to bow down and pay homage, Matthew often uses this term in scenes of “epiphanic self-manifestation” (Hays 2016, 167) which highlight the ways in which Jesus is revealed as ‘God with us’ throughout the gospel.[6] In addition to the times when the disciples worshipped after Jesus saved Peter in the storm mentioned above and the multiple approaches of people coming to Jesus to seek healing or an honor to be bestowed by Jesus[7] it is enlightening to see how Matthew uses the act of worshipping Jesus to bookend the gospel. The first to worship Jesus are the Magi (2:2, 11) and the gospel closes with both Marys worshipping Jesus (28:9) and now the disciples. As David Garland can illustrate the way Matthew uses this worship to bracket the gospel’s response to Jesus,

Their worship means the story has come full circle. The magi came to worship him as the king of the Jews in the beginning (2:2,11). At the conclusion, however, Jesus declares to his disciples that he is the supreme sovereign of the cosmos and owed unconditional obedience. Satan had only pledged to give Jesus “all the kingdoms of the world,” but Jesus grasped after nothing and has received much more through his faithful submission to the will of his heavenly Father—all authority in heaven and earth (see Ps. 2: 7-8) (Garland 2001, 270)

The commissioning of the disciples for their mission in this age has echoes of the commissioning of Joshua to lead Israel into the promised land. Jesus has already appeared as one who can on the mountain speak the law of God, and now the disciples are to carry forward all these teachings. Joshua has two separate commissions in the scriptures, and both are resonant here. First in Deuteronomy 31:23:

Then the LORD commissioned Joshua son of Nun and said, “Be strong and bold, for you shall bring the Israelites into the land that I promised them; I will be with you.”

Also, Joshua 1:7:

Only be strong, and very courageous, being careful to act in accordance with all the law that my servant Moses commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, so that you may be successful wherever you go.

Like the divine commissions of Joshua, now the disciples are commanded to teach new disciples obedience to the commands of Jesus, but they are also promised the presence of their Lord in their mission.

Matthew’s gospel does not have a developed “Trinitarian theology” like the later church, but the seeds that would grow into that theology are present here. Matthew’s baptismal formula which links together the identities of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit reflect Matthew’s continued invitation to see how the actions of Jesus and the Holy Spirit are linked with God’s revelation. Central to the development of the church’s later doctrine of the Trinity was the question of how to talk about the identity of Christ. Matthew’s continual use of scriptural images previously reserved for God to talk about the actions of Jesus have continued to point to a rich unity in identity between Jesus and the God of Israel. As Richard B. Hays speaks forcefully,

Matthew highlights the worship of Jesus for one reason: he believes and proclaims that Jesus is the embodied presence of Gad and that the worship of Jesus is to worship YHWH—not merely an agent of facsimile or an intermediary. If we read the story within the hermeneutical matrix of Israel’s Scripture, we can draw no other conclusion. (Hays 2016, 175)

Matthew’s gospel announces the upcoming birth of Jesus with the title Emmanuel (1:23, citing Isaiah 7:14) and Matthew’s gospel concludes with an echo of this title. The gospel is bookended with the claim that in Jesus, “God is with us.” This has been pointed to throughout the narrative and is also present in the promise that, “where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them” (18:20) This promise that I will be with you to the end (Greek sun-telos) of the eon is where the words and images and promises of Matthew’s gospel reach their telos.[8] As Hays again can state,

beyond the simple logical implications of Jesus’ parting promise, its significance is amplified by the extensive network of scriptural intertexts it evokes. In the MT and the LXX[9] there are atleast 114 instance[10] of a formula declaring God is “with” an individual, group, or the nation of Israel. (Hays 2016, 171)

This short conclusion to Matthew’s gospel brings together several central themes to instruct the disciples in their formation of the community of Christ. They once were commanded to go only to the lost sheep of Israel, but now their commission by their risen Lord is to go to all the nations. The story of Jesus has come full circle as the disciples worship the one who is God with them as they fulfill their commission until the completion of the eon. In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus has only talked about the completion of the eon in parable form (13:22, 33, 39, 49) and the disciples ask Jesus about this again in relation to the destruction of the temple (24:3). The disciple of Jesus are not given signs which will herald the ending of the age, but they are given the promise of their Lord’s presence both in their mission and the sufferings that will come. As these ‘little faith ones’ now go out making disciples, baptizing, teaching and forming communities that can hand on the practices and faith which sees in Jesus the presence of God with us. Communities that can worship even in the midst of their doubts and questions as they, like Matthew, search for language that can bear witness to experience of the God who meets us in the crucified and resurrected Christ. Matthew has, like a scribe trained for the kingdom of heaven, brought out of the storehouse of scripture treasures old and new (13:52) for those with eyes to see and ears to hear. His act of handing on this gospel to us is a gift to teach disciples who now approach this text how to read the scriptures in light of Christ, how to practice obedience to the way of Christ and how our lives continue in the promised presence of the God who is with us.

[1] The Greek simply states that they doubted (oi de edistasan) there is no differentiation between those worshipping (proskuneo) and the doubting ones.

[2]Greek ethnos can mean either Gentiles or nations. I would agree with the translation of all nations instead of all Gentiles here (Matthew does not see an exclusion of the Jewish people from the ongoing mission).

[3] The Greek suntelieais tou aionos brings together two important words in Matthew. The first word is telos with the prefix sun attached, telos being a word of goal or end point and the combination with the prefix gives the idea of completion, closing. The translation of aion as age is appropriate if you are referring in the sense of ‘the age of man.’ This is the closing of the current eon and the initiation of the eon of the kingdom of heaven.

[4] This same title was also used in the baptism of Jesus (3:17). Although Matthew does not develop a baptismal theology for the early Christians he points to this as an activity of this community of Christ and the practice of baptism is linked to the narrative of Christ’s baptism.

[5] Matthew 21:21 in the NRSV is translated doubt, but it is the Greek diakrino instead of distazo used here and in 14:31.

[6] Matthew uses the Greek proskuneo (bow down, worship) a total of thirteen times in his gospel and almost always as an act of worship towards Jesus. In comparison Mark only uses this word twice and Luke three times.

[7] 8:2, 9:18, 15:25, 20:20

[8] Telos means goal, end, destination, or completion.

[9] MT is the Masoretic text or the Hebrew scriptures behind the English translation of the Old Testament, the LXX or Septuagint is the Greek text of what we refer to as the Old Testament.

[10] In addition to the commission of Joshua mentioned above Hays focuses on three particular examples: Genesis 28:12-17 (God in Jacob’s dream), Jeremiah 1:8-9 in the commissioning of the prophet Jeremiah and in the hopeful message of the Prophet Haggai (Haggai 1:13).

Matthew 3: 13-17 The Baptism and Revelation of Jesus

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Francesco Albani, Baptism of Christ (1600s)

Matthew 3: 13-17

Parallel Mark 1: 9-11, Luke 3: 21-22

¹³ Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. ¹⁴ John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” ¹⁵ But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. ¹⁶ And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. ¹⁷ And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

Matthew’s careful narration of the ministry of John the Baptist reaches its climax with the baptism of Jesus, and just as the identity of John the Baptist and the content of his ministry pulls on the prophetic imagination, particularly from Isaiah in this short narrative of the baptism the hope of Isaiah mingles in with the poetic waters of the Psalms as we continue to wonder who this Jesus who meets us in the midst of the waters is. In the previous section I highlighted Isaiah 43: 1-7 where the people are reminded by the prophet Isaiah:

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flames shall not consume you. Isaiah 43:2

We heard John proclaim that one who was more powerful was coming after him, one who would baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire, and as we are introduced to Jesus, Matthew invites us into the water to wonder about this one who is coming after John. The day that comes after the announcement of Elijah in Malachi 4: 5-6 is the day of the LORD, could the coming kingdom of heaven and the day of the LORD truly be at hand in this moment Matthew narrates to us? In Matthew 1 we were introduced to a title for Jesus, Emmanuel: God with us, could this Jesus who stands amid the waters with the reconstituted people of Israel in some way be the God of Israel? Mark’s gospel may have made continual allusions and hints that in Jesus we were encountering more than just a Messiah but Matthew continues to link suggestively in ways that would be shocking to those attuned to hear the imagery of scripture referenced in this way that in Jesus we are somehow meeting ‘God with us.’

Jesus reenters the gospel by approaching John at the Jordan and journeying away from his home in Galilee and approaches John to be baptized with the people. Matthew’s short narrative spends longer on this scene than either Mark or Luke wanting us to hear John’s protest and identify Jesus as one who is greater than him, as one who should be baptizing him. Jesus’ response places him with the people of Israel, those who have come to the waters, those who have turned their hearts to God, those who are repenting and he enters into this space where they have come seeking God’s promised kingdom and is joined to their story. Jesus is not only linked to the story of Israel in the birth narratives, his narrative begins to take on the shape of their story and his identity is typologically joined to the identity and vocation of Israel. As Richard B. Hays proposes:

I would propose that Jesus’ acceptance of a baptism of repentance, performed at the Jordan River, is meant to signify his symbolic identification with sinful Israel (the people whom he will “save from their sins”), and the figurative beginning of that new Israel’s entry into the land of promise. (Hays, 2016, p. 116)

I think it is also important to realize that a continual theme throughout the scriptures is God’s desire to dwell among the people. The kingdom of heaven is being brought to earth rather than the citizens of earth being transported to heaven. God’s desire in the Exodus was to dwell among God’s people in the tabernacle at the center of the community and the sin of the Golden Calf threatened this because God’s anger at their betrayal posed a threat to the people, and yet God forgave and did dwell and go forward with he people. The entire birth narrative of Matthew suggests that this incarnation, to use the language Christians would assign to the birth of Jesus, is God in a new and unexpected ways coming to dwell among God’s people for the sake of the world.

Jesus’ answer to John the Baptist reintroduces us to the concept of righteousness. We first encountered Joseph as a righteous man and righteousness is far more important word to Matthew than to either Mark or Luke who rarely use this term. One the one hand, righteousness in the gospel is held as a contrast to sinners, sometimes in surprising ways, as Jesus will later say, “I have come to call not the righteous but sinners” (Matthew 9: 13) and yet the followers of Jesus are to, “strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness.” (Matthew 6: 33) Jesus becomes the fulfiller of what righteousness will look like and the one who can interpret how one is to live a righteous life. Here Jesus models righteousness in standing with the people who are striving for the kingdom of God and God’s righteousness, later in the Sermon on the Mount he will interpret how to approach the Torah (Law) and what the righteousness of the kingdom of heaven will look like. While Jesus has come to ‘save the people from their sins’ he is not leaving them alone in this, but instead he will walk with these new disciples and model and teach them what it means to hunger and thirst for righteousness, how they can embody a righteousness greater than the scribes and the Pharisees, and how they can seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

Matthew in his unique way wants to highlight this story in a way that accents it differently than Mark and Luke. One of the differences between Matthew and Mark is what happens to the heavens. In Mark’s gospel the heavens are ripped open (the word in Greek is schizomenos, the schizo root is where we get schizophrenia-a ripped open mind) but for Matthew they were opened a far less violent act. This may relate to Matthew’s belief that the creation itself cooperates in bearing witness to who Jesus is and what Jesus means, like the star at the birth and the convulsions in the heaven and earth at the crucifixion. This is a significant change because the schizomenos word forms a bookend for the beginning and end of Mark’s gospel and Matthew chooses to narrate the story without using this rare and noticeable word. There is an intentionality in Matthew’s narration of this scene and the way he carefully chooses vocabulary to fit his vision of what is occurring.

Additionally, in Matthew’s narration of this scene, we see the only gospel where the declaration of the voice from heaven being for everyone present and not only for Jesus. In both Mark and Luke, the voice declares, “You are my son”, but in Matthew the declaration is, “This is my son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” Jesus may be the only one who sees the heavens open and the Spirit descend but the voice declares for those who have ears to hear that Jesus is given the titles of Son, Beloved and one with whom God is pleased. The proclamation in this form will be echoed at the Transfiguration in Matthew 17 and we are meant to hear the connection between these event that allow reveal who Jesus is. It also links us to the centurion’s declaration at the crucifixion that “This man was God’s Son.”

In this declaration of the voice we also hear the echo of another major scriptural current that will flow throughout Matthew’s Gospel, the poetic flow of the Psalms. Here the words go back to the words of Psalm 2 and its words lifting up God’s chosen leader and the close identification between God and that leader:

I will tell of the decree of the LORD: He said to me, “You are my son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. Psalm 2: 7-10

Just as Isaiah was one of the major rivers flowing into the deep sea of Matthew’s Gospel, so the Psalms will be one of the other major bodies of water contributing its language and rhythms to the gospel and helping the evangelist to find language to describe who Jesus is and what he means. For the identity of Jesus is critical to those who will pass through the waters with him.

I continued the quotation of Psalm 2 longer than most writers, though most catch the allusion to this Psalm, because there is in this public declaration a challenge to the existing powers. The gospel is a political statement and the kingdom of heaven does challenge the underlying assumptions of any empire: whether Egypt, Babylon, Rome or even a modern world power like the United States. In Jesus’ day it was well known that Caesar Augustus, who reigned during Jesus’ birth, and Emperor Tiberius, who reigned during Jesus ministry, both made claims to be the son of a god. Later in the gospel when Jesus asks for a denarius (Matthew 22:19) it likely bore an inscription stating Caesar Augustus Tiberius son of the divine Augustus. Yet, Jesus being declared Son of God by God’s voice occupies this role in a way that Caesar cannot, Caesar’s divine right may be defended by the might of the empire but for Matthew’s gospel the voice of the God of Israel’s declaration is the only one that matters. A challenge to this vision of what God’s reign through the Beloved will look like will be encountered next in the temptation narratives of the following chapter.

Matthew also slightly modifies the language around the Spirit of God from Mark in a subtle but important way. In Mark’s gospel the Spirit of God comes down ‘into’ Jesus and the will ‘throw or cast out’ Jesus into the wilderness, but in Matthew the Spirit of God comes down and appears to Jesus and will later ‘lead’ Jesus into the wilderness. For Matthew it is important that Jesus remains in control and that the Spirit of God partners with Jesus rather than controlling or possessing Jesus (which you could argue for in Mark’s gospel).

This critical piece of the story once again points to who this Jesus is. It has been a topic introduced throughout the opening chapters and there have been multiple answers that continue to give richness to the answer Matthew wants us to hear. Yet, Matthew wants us to hear this close identification between Jesus and the God of Israel in an emphatic way that is reinforced throughout these chapters. As O. Wesley Allen can state:

What the angel declared to Joseph, what the magi understood the star to mean, what the prophetic texts confirm, and what John himself proclaimed is now summed up in God’s own voice. (Allen, 2013, p. 38)

Jesus’ identity will present a challenge to both the ruling authorities who desire to claim divine authorization for their own rule and it also reframes the Jewish expectation of the ruler who God reigns on God’s behalf. Matthew’s use of the Hebrew Scriptures stretches their imagination of how God comes to dwell with the people farther than the Psalms or the prophets would have dared, and yet it is the language of the prophets and psalms that underlies the proclamation of the evangelist. Matthew is making bold claims about who Jesus is and how he is related to God. Matthew’s carefully chosen words, along with the words of the other gospel writers, Paul and the other authors of the New Testament would give birth to the Trinitarian way in which Christians would talk about God. Yet, Matthew nor any other writer of the New Testament, would have developed the vast Trinitarian language that forms the creeds of the early Catholic and Orthodox church, that language evolved around the explanation of who Jesus is to a Greek philosophical mindset rather than the mindset immersed in the Hebrew Scriptures. Matthew is far more interested in letting the disciples of Jesus know that in Jesus they are somehow meeting God with them than attempting to describe how Jesus can be fully divine and fully human, or how Jesus, God and Spirit can be one being. Matthew would probably be ambivalent to these philosophical questions but instead would want us to know how the scriptures bear witness to the hope, promise and identity of Jesus and what it means for Israel and the rest of the world.

Images for The Holy Trinity Sunday

The God Who Meets Us-A Sermon for Holy Trinity Sunday

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Rublev’s Icon of the Holy Trinity

If you had to describe what God is like to someone, how would you do it? Now I know that there is always a sense in which our words fail us and God is beyond description, but that doesn’t alleviate the need for us to talk about God and to try to say who God is and what God is about in the world. We need to understand who God is and how God acts as we try to make sense of the disasters, whether they are something huge like the tornado that devastated the city of Moore and parts of New Castle, Shawnee and Oklahoma City last week or whether they are the more personal disasters we may encounter in our lives. How do I talk about God in the midst of the ending of a marriage or the loss of employment, in having to move-where is God in the midst of these things and who is God in the midst of all of these things. We may argue with God, question God’s character, weep with God and yet I am becoming more and more convinced that we do our best to describe in some way the God we come to know in the midst of our lives-or the God we want to come to know in the midst of our crises and cries.

Today is Trinity Sunday, now every Sunday is a Sunday in which we attempt to talk about God and the way God interacts in the world, but on Trinity Sunday we come to talk about the God who meets us in the Father, the Son and in the Spirit and we celebrate a concept about God-a way of talking about God that the early church leaders felt was their best answer to give words to the experience of God they had experienced and the world had experienced. It is the picture of a God who is always coming down to be a part of the world and a part of the lives of God’s people. It is a mystery, we cannot adequately describe everything about God, but we try to use the language of the scriptures, tradition and our experience to give a frame of reference to talk about the God who creates, who renews, who enters into relationships and restores peace and the God who loves. Unlike most other stories of the ancient world, the Bible’s story of creation is not a story of a god who subdues and conquers an evil world but rather a God who speaks into being a good world that God loves, that God wants to be a part of. From the earliest stories of Adam and Eve we see God’s desire to come down and to be a part of the lives of Adam and Eve, of Abraham and Sarah, of Jacob and Leah and Rachael, of Moses and Aaron and Miriam, of Samuel and Solomon and of many others. God was not content to be separate and distant from their lives, no instead God chose to come down and interact with them. We see a God who loves the world for all its warts and worries. The entire purpose of the people of God building first a tabernacle and then under Solomon a temple was so that God could dwell in the midst of God’s people. God would continue to send God’s Spirit upon the prophets and priests and sometimes even kings to speak to the people. In the Book of Proverbs we hear about the wisdom of God which was there at the beginning of creation and the prophets can often talk about the Spirit of the Lord coming upon them, but at the same time somehow the LORD their God was one, and there was only one God. And yet they Jewish people used the language they had to try to talk about who their God was.

Yet God was not content to dwell in houses made of stone, to remain locked behind the walls of a temple or a tabernacle. God is many things, but never tame, never safe, God is good and loving but never safe. In the prophets we began to hear the hope for a new relationship God was creating with God’s people and who God’s people were was about to move beyond the boundaries of the Jewish people as God continued to love the world. In the words of the prophet Jeremiah:

³¹ The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. ³² It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt– a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD. ³³ But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. ³⁴ No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the LORD,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. Jeremiah 31: 31-34

Or in the prophet Joel which we heard last week at Pentecost:

²⁸ Then afterward I will pour out my spirit on all flesh;

your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,

your old men shall dream dreams,

and your young men shall see visions.

²⁹ Even on the male and female slaves,

in those days, I will pour out my spirit. Joel 2: 28-29

At Christmas we celebrate this Word of God that was there in the midst of creation, that was with God and was God coming down, sharing our life, putting on flesh and living among us. This Jesus of Nazareth came and proclaimed the kingdom of God and in his healings, his words, his actions, his forgiveness of sins and his life people encountered something they hadn’t before. Somehow in the midst of this man people were encountering God. Somehow he was more than just a righteous and holy person and it was really after the resurrection at Easter that those who had been with him began to understand in a new way that this really was God dwelling and walking among us. And yet there was Jesus and there was the Father who Jesus had prayed to and somehow they were both God. The early church would wrestle with how exactly they were going to talk about this, but ultimately in both Jesus and the Father they had encountered God and they needed some way to give honor and praise to the God who had continued to come down and dwell among them.

At Pentecost we celebrate the Spirit coming down and the disciples and the people encountered a presence that was somehow undeniably of God. And yet this was the Spirit that was there throughout the ministry, it was the Spirit that also had moved over the waters of creation, the Spirit that had spoken through the prophets. And as the early church tried to make sense of this God they had encountered in Jesus, in the Father and in the Spirit they talked about God as Trinity. It was a way of giving language, words to the experience of the God who comes down, who loves the world and us so much that God cannot seem to help but want to be a part of our lives.

Yet wherever God the Father is active, when we look we find the Son and the Spirit, and when Jesus is active the Father and the Spirit are there, as Jesus can say to his followers :

¹² “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. ¹³ When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. ¹⁴ He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. ¹⁵ All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. John 16: 12-15

The Spirit speaks what the Spirit hears, the Father and the Son share in this ministry. The Spirit bears witness to the Son and the Father. Sometimes people will talk about the Father being about creation, the Son about redemption, and the Spirit about the new life-but each are involved in all three, for example when Paul talks about redemption:

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ² through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. ³ And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, ⁴ and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵ and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

That somehow this action involves all of God but we encounter God and Jesus and the Spirit all working at the same time to give us peace and pour love into our hearts. We are made a part of what God is doing in the world and as God suffers we also encounter the suffering that is a part of love. At some point it is probably simpler to say 1+1+1=3 and stick with pictures and diagrams of how God the Father and God the Son and God the Spirit interact and are related. This picture from the Church Center is just that, one of the traditional representations of three in one, yet ultimately this is not about a concept of God, it is about the God who loves the world and who we encounter throughout the story, throughout times and in the experience of our own lives, a God who loves and comes down to dwell with us. A God who we encounter in Jesus and the Spirit and in the God who is the creator of all things, and somehow they are all somehow God and yet we experience them in different times and different manners.

Sign of the Rose

Searchings: Sacred and Secular