Homily for The Holy Trinity - 2020

"Mystery of Life"
Isaiah 6:1-7; Romans 11:33-36; John 3:1-17

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Today we celebrate a mystery. It’s a mystery we can never comprehend, never understand, never wrap our minds around. It’s no mere philosophical idea, notion, or concept. This mystery is a doctrine—a life-bestowing, life-sustaining teaching. This mystery is truth itself. We can only believe it, trust it and rely on it. And as we do that, our lives actually take on more meaning and make more sense. The more you ponder the Holy Trinity, the better you know yourself, other people, and the world around you. Your whole life—the life of every Christian—begins and ends with the Holy Trinity.

Let’s begin with Isaiah in our first reading. About 740 years before Christ, powerful King Uzziah died. Uzziah, also called Azariah, had reigned 52 years in Judah, and “he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord” (2 Kgs. 15:3). He was not a perfect king, but he was a good king. Just imagine the uncertainty when he died. Who would become the next king? Would he be a good king or not? So the Triune God gave Isaiah a vision of Himself sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, wearing a royal robe. His honor guard of six-winged seraphim were flanking Him and singing His praises: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!” Three holies for three Persons of the one Godhead.

What did God want Isaiah to take away into his everyday life of serving as prophet? Two things. First, even though King Uzziah had died, Father, Son and Holy Spirit still sat on the highest throne. Human rulers come and go, but God always reigns. Isaiah’s second takeaway was that he was a sinner among a race sinners. “Woe is me!” he cried, “For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.” Seeing the true God and being in His presence will do that to you every time. Even as he was being called and ordained to serve as God’s spokesman, Isaiah learned to live on the receiving end of God’s purging and forgiving. Don’t we all—every human being, regardless of age, genealogy or skin color.

Next let’s go to St. Paul as he writes to Christians in Rome. He has taught that the Gospel is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Rom. 1:18). God’s wrath and judgment for all sin of all shapes, sizes and colors is completely justified. “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God” (Rom. 3:10-11), Paul proclaims. Yet, God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is merciful. Even though “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” by His deep wisdom and unsearchable ways all “are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:23-24). This peace with God gets applied to you and me in our Baptism into Christ. We see that happening yet again today with little Caroline Grace. Now we get to be slaves to God, not ourselves. Now we have life in the Holy Spirit. Now nothing can separate us from the Trinity’s love in Christ Jesus our Lord. Now we see that God Himself—the truest community of Persons living together in pure love—overcomes the divides between peoples. In Paul’s day, it was the divide between Jew and Gentile. In our day, well, we desperately need the Triune God, don’t we?

For all this St. Paul leads us in singing a doxology, a hymn of praise, to the Holy Trinity. His riches, wisdom and knowledge in rescuing us from sin and death are so deep. His ways and judgments of recreating us and making us His children are beyond our puny mental powers. Who can teach Him a thing or two or sit in judgment of Him? Who can ever repay Him for His undeserved mercy and goodness? “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen.” Three prepositions—from, through, and to—echo three Persons of the Trinity. They also tell us that God—our Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier—is the source, the means, and the goal of everything in life.

Now we come to Nicodemus and his late night meeting with Jesus. And we can relate with his confusion. How does all of this work? How can this Man—Jesus—also be God? What does He mean by “born again” or “born from above”? How can life have meaning in this fallen, broken, sick, chaotic world?

Jesus teaches Nicodemus by pointing him to the Holy Trinity. Life with God the Father comes only by being born again. That new birth happens, not by re-entering a womb, but by being washed “of water and the [Holy] Spirit.” Thank you, Caroline Grace, for being our latest reminder and role model in this! And where does God the Son fit into this gift of life with God in His kingdom? “God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.”

All of this is the mystery we ponder—the mystery of life, the grace we acknowledge, and the true faith we confess. Your whole life and my whole life—indeed the whole life of every Christian—begins and ends with the Holy Trinity. And God wants it to be so with every human being. The Father is not more God than the Son, and the Son is not more God than the Holy Spirit. Neither is any one of them less God than the other two. “Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Spirit” (Athanasian Creed).

All three Persons in one divine Being wants only one thing: you, me, every Christian—indeed every human being—in loving, living relationship with Him and one another, both now and into eternity. That relationship takes place by the purging of sin in repentance and forgiveness in Jesus’ shed blood. Remember that you are baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Remember that you are absolved in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. And when you are placed into the ground, it will be God the Father, who created your body; God the Son, who by His blood redeemed your body; and God the Holy Spirit, who by Holy Baptism sanctified your body to be His temple, who will keep you until the Day of Resurrection.

This glorious, gracious mystery helps us make sense of—and even bring hope to—what we now endure. Just as we’ve been confronted with a coronavirus, now we are assaulted by a revolting, senseless killing and by violent, chaotic riots, looting and more killing. Obviously, all of the anger and killing go against God’s Fifth Commandment. We humans should protect life, not snuff it out. Yes, all lives matter. That’s not a political statement; it’s God’s truth. And all of the looting and damaging of property, of course, goes against God’s Seventh Commandment. We humans should protect our neighbor’s possessions, not just destroy, snatch and grab them as ours.

Perhaps the greatest hope and help the Trinity gives at this time is on the matter of “racism”—this highly charged issue that keeps dogging our society and us who live in it. Yes, racism of any shape, size or color is wrong and sinful. Here’s where the Trinity’s truth gives help and hope.

Did you know there are not many different races based on skin color? Yes, there are different people groups—what the Bible calls “peoples and tribes and languages and nations” (Rev. 11:9). Yes, there are differences in appearances—skin colors and eye shapes—to be sure. Do you want to know how different you are from someone who looks different than you in skin color or eye shape? According to one surgeon in Manhattan, the percentage of your genes that determines your appearance—and your neighbor’s appearance—is about 0.01%. [See here.] All of our talk and strife about “race” and “racism” is over 0.01% of our genetic code given by God. He’s the One who determines, in His deep wisdom, what each of us looks like. Do you know that means? It means that in the other 99.99% of our genetic code, you and I are the same as anyone and everyone with different skin colors or eye shapes or other outward traits.

It means there is only one race—the human race. After all, we all descend from one man, Adam, and his wife Eve. “[God] made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place” (Acts 17:26). Just as God is three Persons in one Godhead and one God in three Persons, so also various people groups are one human race and one human race in various people groups.

The greatest news and the greatest hope of all is this: “God [thus] loved the world—every individual human being and every people group of the one human race—that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” This Jesus—the Son of God and descendant of Adam—has come to bring peace, reconciliation, and healing by His death on a cross and His glorious resurrection. It’s the work of the Holy Trinity. It’s the mystery of life for you and for everyone so unsettled and upset at this time. Amen.

Homily for Holy Trinity Sunday - 2017

"What Is Faith?"
John 3:1-17

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Trying to understand the Holy Trinity is a lot like using a fire hose to fill a tea cup and not spilling a drop. It’s a good thing that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit does not call us to understand Him! Rather, He calls us to believe in Him, have faith in Him, and so worship Him. As we will confess shortly, “Whoever desires to be saved must, above all, hold the catholic faith”—not understanding. “And the catholic faith is this, that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity….”

In John 1:12, the Apostle John writes: “To all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” What is this believing? What does faith involve?

Just before Jesus conversed with Nicodemus, St. John also tells us: “Many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man” (Jn. 2:23-25). This little commentary by John raises the question, “What is faith?” Our Gospel today—Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus—answers that question.

What is faith? First of all, faith is not just seeing miracles and being drawn to the One who performs them. You see, miracles can often be misunderstood. Remember the story of the Feeding of the 5,000 (John 6:1-15)? The crowd saw and realized the miracle Jesus had done, and so they wanted to make Him king. But they only wanted a “bread king”—a king who would satisfy their earthly wants and desires. So Jesus preached a sermon to them. He told them that He is the true Bread from heaven. He told them that whoever eats His flesh and drinks His blood would live forever. That’s what the miracle pointed to. But they would not believe that. So John tells us that many of them “turned back and no longer walked with him” (Jn. 6:66).

Also, faith is not just an interest in Jesus as a great Teacher. He certainly is a great Teacher, to be sure. That’s how Nicodemus first approached Jesus: “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” Many others said the same thing. There was the rich man who came to Jesus and asked, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Mk. 10:17). But then Jesus told him to sell all his possessions, and the man “went away sorrowful” (Mk. 10:22). Even the scribes and Pharisees recognized Jesus as a Teacher. One day one of them came to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” (Mt. 22:36). But they were not really interested in His answer; they were just trying to trip Him up and trap Him.

So faith is not merely hanging on to Jesus as a miracle-worker or recognizing Him as a great Teacher. What, then, is faith? In our Gospel reading, Jesus tells Nicodemus that faith is a matter of being reborn. “Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God,” Jesus says. Nicodemus misunderstands. So Jesus says: “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” In other words, faith is the work of God the Holy Spirit in us. Poor Nicodemus is still confused. So he asks, “How can these things be?” But a how question is not the right question. So Jesus points him—and us—to the what.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” Faith is holding on to and trusting in the love of God, the love that gave His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to the world. “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” Faith is hanging on to and clinging to that love, no matter how strange or difficult things in our lives may seem.

So Jesus gives Nicodemus an example from their own history: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” Remember the story? The Israelites were on their way through the wilderness to the Promised Land. As they were accustomed to do, they were rebelling against God and complaining about the bleak wilderness they were in. So God sent poisonous snakes among them. When the snakes bit the people, the people started to die. Then they came to their senses and repented. So God told Moses to make a bronze serpent and put it up on a pole. That serpent on the pole would be their deliverance and healing. Whoever was bitten and looked at that serpent would live.

Now God could have simply gotten rid of the snakes. But He wanted to save His people through faith. He wanted them to believe Him and take Him at His word that if they looked up to that serpent on the pole, they would live.

Now, of course, that serpent on the pole was a sign that pointed ahead to something much greater. It pointed to the love that God showed to a rebellious world. It pointed to the Son of Man who was lifted up on the Cross. And whoever looks to this Cross will see God’s love wrapped up in flesh and blood—our very deliverance and healing from sin and death. Whoever believes in Him—holding on to Him, clinging to Him—should not perish but have eternal life.

Now God could have simply snapped His fingers and rid the world of sin and death. But He wanted to save us through faith. He wanted—and still wants—us to believe Him and take Him at His word that when we look to His only-begotten Son, we will live.

So, what is faith? Faith is believing the greatest miracle and teaching of all—that God loved the world in such a way that He sent His Son to suffer and die for all, so that we can have life in Him. It’s a life we were given when we were born anew and born from above by water and the Spirit in Holy Baptism. It’s a life that He puts into us every time we eat our Lord’s flesh and drink His blood in the Holy Supper. It’s a life that will keep and preserve us, no matter how difficult or trying our lives may be. It’s eternal life even now, life that will continue into the eternal kingdom that He has prepared for us.

Nicodemus may not have received all the answers he was looking for. We may not receive all the answers we look for either. That’s why faith is not chiefly about understanding. So we simply believe, hold on to, and cling to the love of God that He has shown us in Christ Jesus our Lord—a love lifted up on the Cross and raised from the dead. “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and how inscrutable His ways!” That’s why faith simply cries out: “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.”

Homily for the Holy Trinity

"Our Giving God"
John 3:1-17; Isaiah 6:1-7

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How often had Isaiah served in the temple?  How often had he participated in its liturgy?  How well he knew it!  But then came that day, that life-changing day, that day when the earthly scene in front of him melted away and he was left trembling and naked, staring open-mouthed into the very heart of heaven. He saw God. And the sight terrified him.

He saw Yahweh – God – sitting on his throne, high above the earth. The train of his robe flowed swirling down and filled the earthly temple.  He saw six-winged seraphim, angels of fire, above Yahweh, flying and calling out. He heard their song:  “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory.”

Then Isaiah thought he was in for it, finished. He cried out:  “Woe is me! – I am undone. I am cut off. I am dead meat.” He thought, for sure, that he was about to die.  And so he made confession:  “I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.” Isaiah realized that he was suddenly in the presence of Truth Himself. Every lie he’d ever told seemed to fill his mouth with a foul, disgusting, polluted taste.

But then something happened, something he could never expect or predict. One of the seraphim took tongs to the altar before God and lifted a live, hot, burning coal. He carried it to Isaiah, and with it he seared the mouth of the seer. He purged the mouth of the prophet. He told Isaiah:  “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin is atoned for.” The touch of the living fire of God delivered that gift to him. That day Isaiah became a new man, a man with cleansed lips, and a man with a mission. Now his cleansed lips would speak what his ears heard from God.

Now we come to our Gospel reading. And what a contrast it is! But make no mistake about it: we still see the One whose presence caused Isaiah to tremble in fear. Now, though, He sits, not on a high and lofty throne in heaven, but probably on a dining coach in a humble home on earth. Now He does not wear the great train that Isaiah saw; instead He is clothed in our human flesh and blood. No flying seraphim in sight, but in comes Nicodemus at night. And that darkness describes not only the time of day, but also the condition of Nicodemus’ soul. He was as blind as the darkness outside to Who sat before him. He was as blind as Isaiah was all those times he worshiped at the temple without realizing the terror and awe of God’s unseen presence.

Nicodemus comes eager and ready for some theological chit-chat, maybe even some full-fledged debate. But Jesus cuts right to the heart of what’s on Nicodemus’ heart and mind. “You must be born again,” Jesus says. And how does Nicodemus respond to that?  He argues about how that can even be possible:  “Surely, an old man can’t creep back into his mother’s womb and be born again, can he?” But Jesus does not back down.  He cuts to the heart some more. He cuts right to the point of rebirth and new life:  “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.  That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

And what did you have to do to be born, Nicodemus?  What preparations did you make? What decisions? What efforts? None! Absolutely none. Your first birth—that gift of life—came to you as a free gift—unasked, unsought, unmerited. And so does being born again. You don’t have to creep back into your mother’s womb. You don’t have to do a single, solitary thing. You only have to receive the gift—the gift of entering into God’s Kingdom by the Spirit in the water.

You see, Jesus was inviting Nicodemus to Baptism. When he says, “You must be born again,” He invites everyone to Baptism. Don’t lose the passive. “BE born.” He did not say: “go, rebirth yourself; go, decide to be born again.” Instead, Jesus is telling you that you need the gift that only water and the Spirit can give, a gift from Him to you.  And here’s why you need it: so that you can see and know who the true God is. “And this is eternal life, that they know You the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (Jn. 17:3).

That’s the chief problem of our flesh born of flesh: we are blind to God. Sure, we may know and believe that He’s “out there somewhere,” but we view Him in a very dark light. We see Him as the rule-maker and the joy-squelcher. We see Him as the one Who demands this and that. We see Him as the One determined to make us miserable by not letting us do all the so-called “fun” things we want to do. We view Him as the God who says “No,” the God who is out to get us, the God who makes us pay for all the times we disregarded Him and His rules.

That’s the God Isaiah was afraid he had met in the temple. It’s why he cried out: “Woe is me!”  That’s the God Nicodemus had bargained with his whole life—trying to buy him off, butter him up, or rub him down by frantically keeping all the rules. He came to Jesus to hear if there were any rules he might have missed. After all, he sure didn’t have the peace that he should have had. Most likely, he had that nagging question rattling in his head and haunting his heart: “Have I done enough?” So he wants Jesus to tell him if there’s something more he needs to worry about in order to serve God.

But there’s only one problem. That God does not exist. Isaiah discovered this with the touch of a burning coal and with the words that delivered the gift of forgiveness. Nicodemus discovered it too, when God in our flesh said to him: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.” Did you catch that, Nicodemus? Not “does,” but “believes.” That is, whoever believes and receives the Son of Man who is lifted high on a cross, whoever believes and receives the crucified and dead Son of God, the risen and victorious Lord of Life, that person receives the free, undeserved, unasked for gift of eternal life.  “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.”

The cross, then, shows that our God does not deal with us by means of pay backs or just desserts. Our second reading today asks, “Who has given a gift to Him that he might be repaid?” The answer is, “No one!” God is not a God who is out to take from you. That’s flesh-born-of-flesh thinking!  The Spirit shows that God, the true God, the merciful God sets His heart on giving Himself to you. He is our giving God. And He is the only true God, the blessed Holy Trinity—the Father who gives the Son into our flesh to suffer and die for us; the Son who gives His life into death and resurrection so that we may not die but live; the Spirit who gives us a new birth in Baptism. He brings us to faith in the Son, so that the Son may present us blameless before the Father, clothed in His own holiness, alive with God’s own life.

Today many of you who have been baptized will come to the Table. Today your lips will be touched with the living Body and Blood of the Son of God.  And suddenly you are there with Isaiah:  “Behold, this has touched your lips.  Your guilt has been taken away and your sin atoned for.”  That’s the gift of life from the God who delights in giving, the Most Holy, Most Blessed Trinity in whose presence we are privileged to join with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, praising Him and singing, now and forever:  “Holy, holy, holy.”  Amen.

Homily for Holy Trinity

"Trinity in Unity for Us"
John 3:1-17

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In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Perhaps you remember that song from a few years back, “God Is Watching Us.” Many thought it was a nice Christian song. After all, it mentioned God. But there was a major problem. It sang about God watching us “from a distance.” It ranked right up there with the old “watch-maker God” image—that God made the world, wound it up like a watch to run by itself, and then went somewhere else in the universe. How can we be close to a distant deity? How can we be attached to a detached god? We cannot. And we certainly cannot have our sins washed clean by a god who won’t get his own hands dirty with us. And we certainly won’t be made a community with him, if he won’t associate with us.

There’s a lot of mystery in the one, true, Triune God. On the one hand, Scripture says, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one” (Dt. 6:4). And, on the other hand, God also identifies Himself as three Persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—when He sends His apostles out to make disciples by baptizing and teaching (Mt. 28:19). Then get ready for how we will confess Him in the Athanasian Creed: “we worship One God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, neither confusing the persons nor dividing the substance.” So far this might seem rather philosophical, even distant and detached.

So, what does it mean that we confess the Triune God? Do we want to be saved from sin, death, and the evil one? Then hold on to “the catholic faith.” And what faith is that? “that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity.” No, He’s not a distant deity. Our Triune God comes close to us. He attaches Himself to us. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit come to us in very real and personal ways. He dirties His almighty hands to cleanse us from our sinful weakness. Trinity in Unity for us.

Too often we like to compartmentalize God. We put Him in various boxes. There’s the Sunday morning box. Sunday morning is the time for God, we think, but the rest of Sunday and the other days of the week are ours to do with as we please. We think and act as if our ever-present God were rather absent and detached from our everyday lives.

Then there are the “Trinitarian boxes”—one box for each Person of the Trinity. As we learn in Catechism class, the Father created us, the Son redeemed us, and the Holy Spirit makes us holy. True enough! But then we box the divine Persons in. “Pastor, we’re supposed to pray to the Father, right?” “Right.” “And in Jesus’ name, right?” “Right.” Is it wrong, then, to pray to the Holy Spirit?” Not at all. Let’s remember that when we pray to one we pray to all, and when we pray to all we also pray to each one.

And here’s another thing to watch for. In some modern, “creative” worship services, God is almost divided into three gods. The invocation might be changed to go something like this: “In the name of the Father who created us; in the name of the Son who redeemed us; and in the name of the Holy Spirit who makes us holy.” At first we might think, “Wow, some nice variety.” However, if we take the words at all seriously, we end up having not only three Persons, but also three names. Three names can open the door to thinking of three different gods. The Biblical wording, though, still works best: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” One name, one God, and yet still three Persons. True God. True worship. Trinity in Unity for us.

You see, everyone has a god. The real question is: Is it the true God? Politicians, businessmen, and radio talk show hosts often give a lot of “god talk.” Pop music might even sing of “god.” Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses even speak of “god” and “gods.” But which god? Everyone has some kind of a god. It could be money, or power, or fame, or learning, or even the spirits found in a bottle. It might even be the ever-present “get-along-with-everybody-and-don’t-make-anyone-upset” god that wants to downplay the teaching of Scripture and the Church. As Martin Luther said in his Large Catechism: “A god means that from which we are to expect all good and in which we are to take refuge in all distress…. Whatever you set your heart on and put your trust in is truly your god” (LC I:2-3).

Today, Trinity Sunday, is about the true God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—making Himself known to us. Our God has a passion to make Himself known to us and for us. Jesus tells us about God loving the world and sending His Son, and He also speaks of being born again by the Spirit.

God makes Himself known to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—Three Persons. And yet He always works for a unified purpose: to love us and have us as His very own people. Because of His great love, He created us. After we fell into sin, and even in the midst of our daily sinful thoughts, words and deeds, He loves us to redeem us and bring us back to Himself. And in the Christian faith and life He works all things to keep us as His own precious people. As Scripture says, “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will” (Eph. 1:4-5).

Now if that isn’t great Good News, I don’t know what is! Just think of it. All of your joys and sorrows now take on a new light. Whatever happens to you—good or bad, joyous or grievous—the true, Triune God is always working to keep you as His own. Take, for example the recent storms and flooding in Texas. Such disasters show the raw power of God’s creation, a creation that only He can control, a power that rightly humbles us. And yet Jesus the Son of God shed His blood to redeem everyone affected by storms, tornados and floods. And the Holy Spirit constantly works to make known the saving deeds of Jesus and bring true comfort to the devastated regions.

And best of all, the holy Trinity and blessed Unity worked most gloriously at the cross and empty tomb. God makes Himself known to us by rescuing us from our sin and death. God’s good creation took a rotten turn. We masterpieces said to our Maker: “We don’t want You anymore; we’ll be our own gods.” We still say that as we box God in, as we keep Him at a distance, as we try to detach ourselves from Him. It’s no wonder that when we endure sufferings, we think God has abandoned us or left us. The truth is, we’ve left Him.

So the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—all three together in Unity—work to bring us back to Himself. The Father shows His love for us by sending the Son to sacrifice Himself on the bloody cross for us. When Jesus the Son died for us, God died for us. The riches of God and His grace are in the blood shed for us for the forgiveness of sins, the very blood we receive today in the Supper. So the Son bowed His head and gave up the ghost. But then the Holy Spirit breathed life back into Him on the third day. Now He breathes new life into us. Three Persons of the Godhead work to rescue us from sin and death. That’s the new life we have when we are “born of water and the Spirit” (Jn. 3:5).

It’s also the new life of community in the Church. Just as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are a unified community, He joins us together in a community of loving and serving each other. We live in that community here at Hope as we hear God’s Word, receive His Sacrament, and care for one another, always learning in humility to count others more significant than ourselves (see Phil. 2:3). We also live in that community as we say farewell and Godspeed to brothers and sisters whom God has placed here these past several years—the Palmer family. Even as they must leave us, we still remain in the same family, the same community, of Jesus’ Church. Yes, we need each other, just as we need the Trinity in Unity. When our Triune God lovingly rescues us from sin and death, He also binds us together in His community called the Church.

God’s singular plan of making us, saving us, and keeping us holy comes from the Father, through the Son and in the Holy Spirit. As St. Paul says: “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” and “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Rom. 5:1, 5). Even today the Spirit delivers that peace with the Father in the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus. So, our lifelong prayer, indeed our way of life, echoes the hymn: “My Maker, hold me in Your hand; O Christ, forgiven let me stand; Blest Comforter, do not depart; With faith and love enrich my heart” (LSB 876:4). Amen.

Homily for the Feast of the Holy Trinity

Call it both a joy and a perplexity - preaching on the Holy Trinity, that is. It's a joy to pause in the Church calendar and ponder this gracious, life-giving, sin-forgiving God who not only created us to be His own, but also entered our fallen world to redeem us from sin and death, and then, on top of that, stays with us to make us holy and sustain us for life with Him into all eternity. And yet it's also a profound perplexity. Just how do Father, Son, and Holy Spirit relate to each other? Just how can three Persons be one God, and how can one divine Essence be three Persons? Our addition-oriented minds, thinking in terms of 1 + 1 + 1 = 1?, just cannot fathom, much less handle, God's very different, "multiplication" way of thinking. After all, 1 x 1 x 1 = 1 is much different way of thinking (and computing). And yet that is precisely how God has revealed Himself to us: One in Three and Three in One.

At any rate, this past Sunday we celebrated our gracious, life-giving, sin-forgiving Holy Trinity, and my homily for the day focused on the Gospel reading from John 3:1-17. Perhaps more perplexity, as this reading seems to be chosen more for its connection to the octave of Pentecost than for Holy Trinity Sunday. And yet Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all make a glorious appearance in Jesus'--the Son's--conversation with Nicodemus. So I chose to include the line from the Athanasian Creed and titled the homily, "Whoever Desires to be Saved."

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