Christ Lutheran Church
Cleveland, Ohio
May 26, 2024
by: Rev. Dean Kavouras
Trinity
More Than A Doctrine
Thank God for Trinity Sunday!
Praise God because once a year we are opulently blessed to review the unique doctrine of the Trinity, and to renew our faith in this One True God. Our Lord says in John 17:3 “This is eternal life. To know Thee the Only True God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.”
There are many contenders for the title, just as there are many horses in the Kentucky Derby. But when the “2 most exciting minutes in sports” have elapsed, only 1 emerges the winner – the others “also rans.”
This is how it is for us as we live our earthly lives in full communion with the Father Son and Holy Spirit into whose name we are incorporated at baptism. From Him and from him alone we obtain divine power so that we can escape the razor sharp claws and the devil, the drive by shootings of culture, and keep our fleshly desires in check however hot the transitory temptations.
Our faith in the One True God whom we worship and confess will become even more obvious at the Great Judgment that Jesus teaches in Matthew Chapter 25.
If we don’t know now … we will know then! Know that there is only One True God. And that Allah and all the rest “contenders!” God’s created by people. Created in their own images. Gods they can deal with who are little more than good luck charms and positive thinking coaches. This as opposed to our God and Lord who formed us in His own image and likeness, which we lost in sin, but regained in Trinitarian baptism. Regained by the life, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ the Second Person of the Trinity.
If you are besotted by the culture, by your own wrong assumptions that you are your own lord and master, or by some other religion than the religion of the church catholic, then you should do what Peter told the crowds on Pentecost.
“Repent and be baptized the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the Gift of the Holy Spirit.” Then you will no longer be frozen, confused, or double-minded, but live fully and die with great confidence of what awaits us in “the life of the world to come.” And there is nothing better than that!
Now liturgical, creedal and confessional churches all count true doctrine as precious – and are willing to debate, contend, even suffer or die if necessary, rather than “believe teach or confess” anything less.
The true and pure faith regarding our God has been known from the beginning.
Adam and Woman, knew it.
Noah, knew it.
Abraham, knew it.
David from whom Christ is descended according to the flesh (Rom. 1:3), knew it.
It is implicit in the fact that the Hebrew word for God is plural, not singular.
It is known because God says, “Let us make man in our image and in our likeness.”
It is believed because Isaiah calls Jesus “the Mighty God,”
and because at the Lord’s incarnation, baptism, cross and resurrection all three Persons of the One True God are present and involved – the Father the Son and he Holy Spirit.
Trinitarian doctrine was well known and confessed in the doctrine and practice of the earliest church following the death of the apostles, and to this very day as we still confess the doctrine of the Trinity; and worship our God by this doctrine every time we open in the name of the Triune God, chant the Kyrie, Gloria, Creed, Sanctus and leave with the Trinitarian blessing upon us, which keeps us safe from all harm and danger.
In the late 300’s the doctrine of the Trinity was written down after great deliberation among the most brilliant teachers the church has ever known. They were not deliberating whether the Trinity is the true doctrine of Scripture, but precisely which words they could use to convey the doctrine so that Christians through the ages can do so as often as they assemble. Those great Fathers: Emperor Constantine, Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus, and St. Basil are just a few of the great names that bequeathed to us “serviceable language” by which we can talk about God. Language we all know from the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds.
As said Christians will always contend, fight, bleed and die if need be for the Trinitarian doctrine – if some person or group of persons were to try to take the away, or change our doctrine, or force another upon us.
That said! The doctrine of the Blessed Holy Trinity is more than a doctrine! But it is the very form of Christian faith and worship, and it can only be known in and by Trinitarian Liturgy. We can recite the proof texts and the reason and logic behind this doctrine. But it is only in liturgy that we are bathed in it, and drink it in, so that it is in us, and we are in it.
I bind unto myself today
the strong Name of the Trinity,
by invocation of the same,
the Three in One, and One in Three.
Christ within me,
Christ behind me,
Christ before me,
Christ beside me,
Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort
and restore me.
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ in quiet,
Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of
all that love me,
Christ in mouth of
friend and stranger.
But from whence does this come?
The chief locus of Trinitarian faith, worship and hymnody, is in the prophet Isaiah where Isaiah who was first a priest, before he was a prophet, enters the Temple for daily liturgy and suddenly the place comes to life!
It was not a vision as critical scholars insist. But it happened.
The liturgical furnishings and statues that are a model of heaven, came to life. Really! Came to life!
Of a sudden it was not just the sacramental presence of God in the Temple but his factual actual presence. It would be as if Christ appeared in human form from the consecrated Bread and Wine on the altar. That’s how amazing it was.
His presence was so big that it filled the Temple and nearly crushed poor Isaiah to death. And he accepted the death sentence passed upon him there, because he was a man of unclean lips, and lived among a people of unclean lips, and his eyes saw the Glory of the Lord!
We, too, are undone by our sins. We too are a people of unclean lips, and live among a people of unclean lips. There are the lips’ sins of commission: cursing, complaining, lying, flattery, slander gossip and criticism. But there are also sins of omission: Refusal to worship God in his house. Disdain for the Blessed Sacrament of Holy Communion. “For with the heart one believes and is justified, but “with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” That confession takes place when one opens his mouth wide, so that the Lord can fill it! (Ps. 80:12).
Yes though Isaiah understood that he was a dead man walking to be in God’s presence, stained as he was by sin, that was not the final word. But rather it was the word of the Seraph who touched his lips with a burning coal from the altar and said, “"Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for." (Is. 6:7)
These are the same Seraphim who antiphonally sing to God, “Holy Holy Holy is the LORD of Sabaoth! The whole earth is full of his glory.” Now whether you understand each of those Holies to be one to the Father, one to the Son, and one to the Holy Spirit. Or all to the thrice blessed, second person of the Trinity, matters not. But what does matter is that we confess our sins, believe the absolution here given so that we can most humbly join them in this Trinitarian worship.
Yes the Trinity is more than a doctrine. It is also a way of life. The Way. For finally if we hold this dear faith we must answer the Triune God when he says,
“Whom shall I send?
Who will go for us to be our messengers to the world?
We must all answer as did Isaiah, our Lord Jesus Christ and our fathers in the Faith, “Here am I! Send me. Send me! Then we will rightly know and believe the Trinitarian Doctrine. Amen.