Trinity Sunday, 2024 - The Mystery of the Trinity

Trinity Sunday - on the liturgical calendar, Trinity Sunday always follows Pentecost Sunday when we celebrate the gift of the Spirit. It is the Sunday we acknowledge the mystery of the Trinity - God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Theologians have long sought to explain the mystery of the Trinity.

Some people describe the Trinity as God taking on three different forms or roles - Father, Son, Spirit. They illustrate this concept by pointing to the three different states or forms in which we find water - solid (ice), liquid (water), vapor (steam).

In contrast to this common understanding, theologians commonly use two specific terms to speak of the Trinity. The most common term is "the three-in-one." This idea is explained by the second, lessor known term: "unity in diversity expressed in community." Diversity refers to the three. In this understanding, God is viewed as three individual beings - each unique and different (diversity) - who live in unending relationship with one another. The words unity and community are used to describe this relationship. Ancient theologians used the term "divine dance" to speak of it. In this way of thinking, the term "Godhead" is often used instead of God.

But how can three be one? This question capture the mystery of the Trinity. How are the three one?

A number of years ago, I was teaching a confirmation class about the Trinity - God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. In our exploration, we looked at 1 John 4:8, "God is love." I asked the question, "Which of the Three is love?" With a moment's hesitation, the students answered excitedly, "They all are! Each one is love!" They got it. The three are one because they each have the same character of self-giving love.

The oneness of the Godhead is their character of self-giving, servant love. Father, Son, Spirit - while each is unique and different, they are alike in this one defining characteristic. Each lives out of self-giving, other-centered loved. Thus, their divine dance is a dance of love in which each gives of self, without reservation, on behalf of the other's good. Their love-shaped relationship produces community in which the uniqueness of each contributes to the good of all; hence, unity.

An additional, amazing feature resides in the mystery of the Trinity: that dance of divine love is focused on us and our wholeness.

Each member of the Godhead has given themselves in an eternal redemptive purpose of restoring the unity of heaven and earth (Ephesians 1:3-14, especially verses 9 & 10). At the heart of that eternal redemptive purpose lies our role as the beloved children of God. The Father chose us before the foundation of the world to be adopted as beloved children (Ephesians 1:3-6). Through the Son, we have  the forgiveness of our sin and an inheritance as God's beloved children (Ephesians 1:7-12). That inheritance is the possession of God's character of self-giving, servant love as our own. The Spirit marks us as God's beloved children (compare Romans 8:14-17 and Galatians 4:4-7) and is the guarantee that the Godhead will complete the work of maturing us into the likeness of Christ (Ephesians 1:13-14), thereby restoring the unity of heaven and earth (see Romans 8:19-21).

Through their work of self-giving, servant love, we have been given a central role in the Godhead's eternal, redemptive purpose. Their character of self-giving, servant love is being engrained in each of us.  As we live together in community, we embody the unity in diversity found in the Godhead itself (Ephesians 4:1-16). We become the Godhead's "Exhibit A" of the wisdom of their way of life based on self-giving, servant love (Ephesians 3:10-11). We are being recreated in their divine likeness so that we might contribute to their divine dance of love.

The mystery of the Trinity is far greater than we imagine! 

Pentecost, 2024 - No Salvation Apart from the Work of the Spirit

It seems to me, most people who identify as a Christian focus primarily upon Jesus—in particular, his death on the cross. This dominant focus is driven by guilt over the wrongs they have done—sins—along with the fear of condemnation and judgment that accompanies that guilt. Jesus’s death on the cross holds out the promise of forgiveness for those sins coupled with the promise of “going to heaven” when they die. These promises are claimed by inviting Jesus into their heart, that is, by accepting Jesus as their Savior. (This understanding is the storyline proclaimed by Evangelical Christianity. It is a transactional, if . . . then agreement. “If you will repent of your sin and accept Jesus into your heart, then God will . . ..”) In this understanding, the focus on Jesus as Savior is in reality a focus on self—my sin, my guilt, my need for forgiveness, my need of salvation, my assurance of eternal life in the face of death.

Sadly, this understanding falls woefully short of the apostle Paul’s description of salvation found in Romans 1-8. In these chapters, Paul outlined for the churches in Rome the salvation he proclaimed. For Paul, salvation was more than the forgiveness of sins, more than going to heaven when we die. (Nowhere in Paul’s description of salvation is there a reference to heaven.) Paul spoke of salvation as God’s transforming work in our lives.

Paul began his description of God’s work in Christ Jesus by talking about sin (Romans 1:18-3:20). For Paul, sin was an enslaving power (Romans 7:14) that dwells in us (Romans 7:15-20). This enslaving power is expressed in a self-centered, self-seeking, what’s-in-it-for-me spirit that inherently shapes how we live—what my professor called “the self-life.” This power that enslaves us operates in a progressively degrading fashion (Romans 1:18-32). Ultimately, it brings death, condemnation, and judgment (Romans 5:15-21). We—Jew and Gentile alike—are powerless to escape its power (Romans 3:9-18).

Salvation is what God has done on our behalf through Christ Jesus while we were under the enslaving power of sin. What God did in Jesus was an expression of God’s steadfast, faithful love that never gives up on us or abandons us. “God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). In Paul’s mind, God’s acting out of this steadfast, faithful love was God being righteous—that is, living rightly in relationship with us in spite of our sin. By acting on our behalf, God acted in harmony with God’s character of steadfast, faithful love (Exodus 34:6-7). “For in it (the gospel) the righteousness of God is revealed” (Romans 1:17).

In his letter to the Romans, Paul spoke of three different dimensions of God’s work of salvation.

Theologians refer to the first dimension of salvation as justification—being put right with God. Paul described this first dimension in Romans 3:21-4:25. Through Christ’s death and resurrection, we were “justified by his grace as a gift” (Romans 3:24). In Jesus’s death on the cross, God restored the relationship that was broken by sin. We were reconciled with God. We have peace with God. “Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand” (Romans 5:1-2). We live as beloved children of God (Romans 8:15-17).

The restored relationship sets the stage for the next dimension of salvation—what theologians call sanctification. Paul’s description of this dimension of salvation is found in Romans 5:1-8:17.

Sanctification refers to the on-going process of transformation that occurs deep within us as we live in relationship with God as beloved children and as the followers of Jesus. It refers to the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, growing us up into the likeness of Christ (Romans 5:3-5; 8:29). In our baptism, we mystically shared the death and resurrection of Jesus (Romans 6:3-4). Our old self—the self that is enslaved to sin—died with Christ. As a result, we are no longer enslaved to sin. “We know that our old self was crucified with him (Christ Jesus) so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin” (Romans 6:6). We escape the grip of self-life—the self-centered, self-serving, what’s-in-it-for-me spirit—in our lives. The Spirit works to make this freedom a reality in our lives. The Spirit empowers us to put to death the deeds of the self-life (Romans 8:13), guiding us and empowering us to live the ways of God Jesus taught (Romans 8:14). Through the transforming work of the Spirit, we are empowered to live the ways of God (Romans 8:4). Interestingly, this inner transformation takes place as we deal with the sufferings that are a normal part of life (Romans 5:3-5; 8:28).

The transforming work of the Spirit in our lives—sanctification—holds forth the promise of the third dimension of salvation that Paul described: the future realization of being conformed into the likeness of Christ. “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he (the Son) might be the firstborn within a large family” (Romans 8:29). John Wesley spoke of this future realization as perfecting grace. Paul spoke of it as “our hope of sharing the glory of God” (Romans 5:2), as “adoption, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:23). His description of this future dimension is found in Romans 8:18-39.

For Paul, salvation was God’s transforming work of love in our lives—through Christ Jesus, through the Spirit. It is God setting us free from the enslaving power of sin. It is God working to grow us up into the likeness of Christ. It is God working to engrain God’s character of self-giving love in our hearts (Jeremiah 31:33). It is God replacing our self-centered, self-serving, what’s-in-it-for-me spirit with the servant spirit of Christ.

Setting us free from the enslaving power of sin is God’s work in us through Christ Jesus. Transforming our lives into the likeness of Christ is God’s work in us through the Spirit.

Which brings me (finally) to Pentecost. Pentecost was the day when the Spirit was poured out on us, among us, in us (Acts 2:1-4). Like Jesus the Son, the Spirit was the next expression of God’s steadfast, faithful love. As in Jesus, the Spirit is God with us, God for us.

Whenever our focus is primarily upon Jesus—particularly on his death on the cross—we miss the Spirit and the Spirit’s transforming work in our lives. Rather than the Spirit filling our lives with the character of Christ, we fill our lives with right belief, right behavior (morals), and right religious ritual. Rather than being set free from the enslaving power of sin, we merely cover our self-centered, self-seeking, what’s-in-it-for-me spirit with a religious veneer. Self-life remains alive and well within us.

Sixth Sunday of Easter, 2024 - Living the Resurrection in the Here and Now

We tend to think of the resurrection in terms of the future—something we’ll experience after our death as time-space history as we know it comes to an end. Because we place the resurrection in the future, we—like the apostle Paul in Romans 8:22-25—link it to hope. We live with the forward-look of faith we call hope.

Paul, however, also spoke of the resurrection as a reality we, as the followers of Jesus, experience in the present—here, now, today. We find this line of thinking in Romans 6:1-14.

In this section of his letter to the churches of Rome, Paul wrote that—in our baptism—we were united with Christ Jesus in his death, burial, and resurrection. “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:3-4). Not only did our baptism mark us as the followers of Jesus, it portrayed what we experienced spiritually when we opened our lives to the grace of God and chose to live as a follower of Jesus.

In choosing to live as a follower of Jesus, we died to a sin-oriented way of living (Romans 6:2). “Our old self” was crucified with Christ (Romans 6:6). This old self was enslaved to a self-centered, self-focused, self-reliant, what’s-in-it-for-me spirit (Romans 6:6). This egocentric spirit unconsciously dominated our thinking and drove our decisions. It shaped our lives. We were “enslaved to sin” (Romans 6:6; 7:14-23).

In his death and resurrection, Jesus broke the power of sin and death. He set us free from its enslaving power. “We know that our old self was crucified with him so that . . . we might no longer be enslaved to sin” (Romans 6:6). When we opened our lives to God in Christ Jesus, we died to this egocentric, self-centered, self-focused, self-reliant, what’s-in-it-for-me spirit. We were set free from its controlling power.

That’s where resurrection in the here and now comes into play. Having died with Christ, “we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). Whenever we walk in newness of life, we experience the resurrection in the here and now.

The newness of life of which Paul spoke is a life oriented toward God rather than to sin. “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11). It is a life given to learning and living the ways of God Jesus taught—what Paul called righteousness. “Present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness” (Romans 6:13).

Our experience of this newness of life is the result of the Spirit’s work in our lives, transforming us into the likeness of Christ. Through the transforming work of the Spirit, the old self-centered, self-focused, self-reliant, what’s-in-it-for-me spirit is being put to death while the self-giving, servant spirit of Christ is being engrained in its place. The Spirit empowers us to love as Jesus loved, to love those whom Jesus loved. The Spirit empowers us to live the kind of life Jesus lived—what is for us “newness of life.” The Spirit empowers us to live in the reality of the resurrection—here, now, today.