Embrace of the Trinity Trinity Sunday, June11, 2006 Romans 8: 12-17 and John 3:1-17
By Visiting Pastor Suzanne Guinn, suzeguinn@sbcglobal.net
The Doctrine of the Trinity says this…………
God is 3in 1--
God is fully God when God first created and continues to create the universe.
God is fully God when God lived, died, and was raised up, and still lives in the presence of Jesus.
God is fully God when God lived and still lives in the presence of the Holy Spirit who lives in our hearts today.
Not three gods, but One God with three personas, dimensions, qualities
Our Life in the family of God begins and ends in the name of the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
“To begin is to be in the Trinity. To wash…Jesus standing with the people being washed, the Spirit descending, the voice speaking--is to be in the Trinity. To give thanks at table--to eat and drink the signs of Christ, enlivened by the Spirit, in thanksgiving to God--is to be in the Trinity. To find all these things accessible to outsiders and the ungodly is to behold the stunning surprise of the holiness of the Trinity. It is what Christians who have experienced meeting in the risen Christ have found they must say about God.” (from the book Holy Things by Gordon Lathrop )
At the center of Paul’s character is always his ceaseless embrace of the Trinity as the strong foundation for his service (Col.1.13-20) His worshipful writing stems from discerning the Father’s grace and peace, includes often an elaborate hymn to Christ, and alludes to the work of the Spirit in the lives of people he serves. All the letters of Paul mention all three persons of the Trinity including his letter to the Romans that we read today. “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry ‘Abba! Father!’ It is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God…and joint heirs with Christ, if in fact we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.” (Romans 8:14-17)
Recently at a synod assembly I met a mother whose daughter suffered with and fought Neuroblastoma a rare childhood cancer for three years. She died in June of 2004 at the age of 15. This mother shared her family’s journey in person with me and through a book she wrote, Laughing through the Fear: one mother‘s story of dealing with a daughter who has cancer by Tammy Sharp. It is a journey that was often heartbreaking yet so full of God’s grace. It was a time of great physical and emotional pain and suffering yet there were moments of joy. It was a time of isolation and a time of being fully in community among the family of God. It was a time of fear but even more so of faith.
She writes: “Some days I get exhausted. Some days I get tired of taking care of her. Some days I feel really guilty about wanting answers that are no where to be found. But every day I get to love Kelly is a good day. Everyday that I get to make her giggle and give her a sense of security is a good day. Everyday that we get to talk about what is important to her and to life itself is a good day. For all of those days, I am grateful.
And one day, when my heart breaks and she leaves this world, I will hold her close and remind her that she will go on to One who loves her even more than I ever could. To the One who has held her throughout this insanity and has given her laughter and hope in the midst of fear. On that day I will look to heaven and tell God that I am angry that he gets to have her, but I will be grateful knowing that I was able to love her, and she is able to run once again.”
To be led by the Spirit of God is to rest in the assurance given in our Baptism that we have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever. Nothing can ever separate us from God. The connection has been made… the relationship established.
As Paul so confidently declares in the final verse of Romans Ch.8 “ “…I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height or depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
This was the verse Kelly had chosen as her Confirmation verse at the beginning of her battle with cancer. And it would be the verse that would be read at the end of her life on earth at the Celebration of the Resurrection and remembrance of her life. It really sums up how the Trinity : Father (Mother), Son (Child), and Holy Spirit (breath of God) embraces and enfolds us in God’s amazing grace with love and forgiveness beyond our wildest imaginations.
There is nothing or no one who can sever the bond of love God has with us. There is nothing more powerful than God’s love for God’s children made know in Jesus life of loving service , his death on a cross, and his being raised from the dead. And this same love has been breathed into you and I by the Holy Spirit. A love that knows no end.
Earlier today at the 9AM Forum, Jean Oswald from Briarwood made a presentation about the camp and spoke about how it shapes future leaders in the church. One of the people present said his daughter was at camp this week in the Lyle program training to be a counselor. She was kind of shy at first, but that after the first few days she was learning to trust the counselors more and more and was feeling more confident about herself and her gifts.
Camp gives children of God an opportunity to be themselves, the person God created them to be, and to learn to trust God’s guidance as well as an opportunity to play in a safe environment. I think we all need a camp experience once in a while to remind us who we are, Children, and whose we are God’s beloved.
How often in our own places of struggle and pain we forget our preciousness in the eyes of God…who is a loving father and mother to us, who is a dear brother, and life-giving breath. We forget we are the beloved and forgiven and blessed child of God, named and claimed and called in our baptisms. We forget that we can call God … Abba! Daddy! And God will respond with love to our cries and our laughter, our hurts or disappointments and our joys.
To trust this God who holds us dear is to be led by this God and be the children God created and called us to be.
We can never be quite sure where God will Lead us But we can be sure that God will be with us and we will be embraced by the Trinity for eternity.
That is God promise to all who call God : Daddy, Jesus, and Spirit.
And embraced by such a loving God we are sent out by the Holy Spirit to share this good news with a world filled with fear, pain, despair, and death. People of all ages and cultures and lifestyles need to hear they are beloved and precious to God
Help us to respond with good courage sharing our story of the Trinity’s embrace of us throughout our life on earth and God’s promise to hold us for all eternity.
Amen