Sermon for the 26th of May - Trinity Sunday
We know something about the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. On this Trinity Sunday, I’d like us to think about:
• how they fit together.
• about the three different creeds
And
• how different churches perceive God. How we have come to believe and celebrate Father, Son and Holy Ghost
It has been said that one of the differences between the Western churches and the Eastern Orthodox churches, is that we have a more intellectual approach to our understanding of God, whereas for Eastern churches its more about adoration of the mystery. Personal devotion trumps theological doctrine.
Listen to this from Gregory of Nyssa, the fourth century bishop who had a lot to do with the formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity.
Gregory writes of how the sublime words of the Lord are like gazing down from a high cliff into the immense sea below with the tops of the cliffs projecting outwards towards a promontory overhanging the depths. To look down from such a lofty height into the sea below is to feel giddy. This is exactly how my soul feels now, as it is raised from the ground by this mighty word of the Lord: “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.”
In our opening hymn, Reginald Heber an early bishop of Calcutta refers to the saints casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea. I wonder if he was influenced by the passage from Gregory.
Gregory encapsulates the adoration of the mystery of God. And Heber, in his hymn fuses adoration and the more intellectual approach to the doctrine of the Trinity. As an aside, it is always worth studying the words of Anglican hymns.
So what about the Trinity?
Here’s a little bit of history from the early church.
Trinity is not a word found in the Bible. It’s a doctrine that developed in the early years of the church. This was not without controversy, particularly with the teachings of Arius and his followers who believed Christ was not truly divine, but a created being and was therefore subordinate to the Father.
Emperor Constantine, the First Christian Emperor, told the leaders of the early church that they had to sort out this discord and so they met at Nicaea, south east of modern day Istanbul, in AD 325. They agreed the wording “one Lord, Jesus Christ, begotten not made, of one Being with the Father.”
If you want to know more about the Nicene Creed or the Arian Controversy, can I direct you to the excellent Melvyn Bragg and BBC “In our Time” Radio 4 programmes:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b008jglt (Nicene Creed)
and
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000v2w7 (Arianism)
So Jesus, both fully divine and fully human. And no subordination to the Father.
And no subordination of the Holy Spirit, the preserver of the Church, whose arrival we celebrated last week on Pentecost Sunday.
The Nicaean Creed is what we say in this church each Sunday, and we will say it today.
There are two other creeds, the Apostles Creed, slightly shorter which speaks of Jesus being conceived by the Holy Spirit, and how we believe in the Communion of Saints.
And also the much longer Athanasian Creed which is rarely said, and if it is, it will be on Trinity Sunday. It stresses the equality of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost and the Prayer Book version ends with these words relating to Jesus:
At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies: and shall give account for their own works.
And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting: and they that have done evil into everlasting fire.
This is the Catholick Faith: which except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved.
Perhaps the reason why we are wary of the Athanasian Creed is that it seems to fly in the face of the closing words of today’s Gospel:
“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. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
This is the heart of the gospel. To take the words of the Benedictus, this is the living God visiting and redeeming his people.
God the Son has come into our midst.
William Temple in his seminal commentary on St. John’s Gospel refers to these verses thus:
Christianity is not one more religion of individual salvation, differing from its fellows only in offering a different road to that goal. It is the one and only religion of world- redemption. Its scope is-as wide as the love of God. It is a sin of the world that Christ takes away.
I don’t get a sense of the wide love of God with the way the Athanasian Creed ends.
That wide love of God which brings such joy.
The wide love of God that we access and share as we gather round the altar to receive the Holy Eucharist. Please listen carefully to the Eucharistic Prayer.
And let me finish with some words from Rowan Williams:
That doctrine which today we celebrate, not as a puzzle, but as a joy. I will have no truck with those preachers who begin on Trinity Sunday by apologizing for the fact that it's all so difficult. On the contrary: today we celebrate the fact that we have been plunged into a mystery beyond any depths we could imagine, and that this mystery is life and health and joy for us, and make no mistake about it, because, God the Son has come into our midst.