Trinity Sunday

Romans 8.12-17; John 3.1-17

Today is an important day in our calendar because on this day we call to mind, not our Lord or one of the saints, but a teaching of the Church that is foundational to calling ourselves 'Christian.' Because in this teaching we have received since the early days of the Church, not simply the idea or the opinion, but the belief that Jesus is fully God, just as the Father is fully God; and also that the Holy Spirit is, likewise, fully God. And furthermore that there isn't as a consequence, three Gods, but they are one God. To put it very simply we could say that 1 plus 1 plus 1 equals 1. This teaching of the Holy Trinity is handed down since the beginning of the Church as Truth we are to both accept and believe as true and in doing so we can call ourselves Christians and members of the Church. Belief in this teaching is what marks us out as Christian and is what distinguishes us as such from others who hold that Jesus was merely a prophet or a teacher or wise man, someone less than God himself.

The teaching arose out of fierce dispute in those early years of the Church about who Jesus was. And the argument was whether or not Jesus was both fully man and fully God at one and the same time. The belief prevailed that he was indeed such and it was settled at the great Ecumenical Council of Nicea in the year 325. The one who fought most ardently for its acceptance was St. Athanasius, and to this day we profess such a belief in the creed each Sunday which is referred to as the Nicene Creed.

The teaching of the Holy Trinity, it has to be said, is difficult to understand and rationalise for lay people like ourselves, although we might have academic theologians in our midst who have a better grasp. The remainder of us have to take it on trust, in faith. Indeed, in the end it can't be rationalised at all. It has to be believed. It is a mystery, and it's right that it should be because we are talking about God here and if he was no longer a mystery to us we would God. And mystery though it is, the whole of Christian theology and belief is based upon it and as such we live our Christian lives on the basis of it too.

Here's a couple of things that Athanasius said about the Holy Trinity, in a letter to a man named Serapion. "It will not be out of place to consider the ancient tradition, teaching and faith of the Catholic Church, which was revealed by the Lord, proclaimed by the apostles and guarded by the fathers. For upon this faith the Church is built, and if anyone were to lapse from it, they would no longer be Christian either in fact or in name. We acknowledge the Trinity, holy and perfect, to consist of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.....in the Church, one God is preached, one God who is above all things and through all things and in all things. God is 'above all things' as Father, for he is principle and source; he is 'through all things' through the Word; and he is 'in all things' in the Holy Spirit....all that belongs to the Father belongs to the Son, and so the graces given by the Son in the Spirit are true gifts of the Father. Similarly, when the Spirit dwells in us, the Word who bestows the Spirit is in us too, and the Father is present in the Word. This is the meaning of the text: 'My Father and I will come to him and make our home with him'. This is also Paul's teaching in his second Letter to the Corinthians: 'The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.' For grace and the gift of the Trinity are given by the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit."

If I'm honest I used to think this teaching, this belief mattered not very much at all. The reality was that it was too difficult for me to understand and so I would put it to one side, preferring to see Jesus as merely human and indeed in some respects super human, being endowed with special Godly powers. My joy and my suffering and indeed that of the whole of humanity I could see in Jesus and so it was comforting to know that God's Son had the same sort of experience. But that's all it remained - comforting, and nothing else. And God was still 'up there' and me 'down here' and there was such a great divide.

As I've come to think of this teaching more and more recently too, and to accept and believe it that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one and the fullness of each resides in the other, and put that together with the belief that we humans are made in the image and likeness of God and that in our baptism we have the Holy Spirit given to us, it's made me see that it is in our reach to have what Jesus said he came to give us, and that is 'life in all its fullness', that we can 'do that things that he did and more'. It's made me see that we are indeed, literally 'children of God' and that the Church does indeed 'embody' Jesus himself, that we his eyes and hands and feet.

I can't really explain what it means to me now because you can't explain a mystery. You have to believe it and know it within your own self for it to begin to make a difference. And when you come to think about what it's worth, well it's what many of the Saints died in defending, this faith of the New Testament Church, the Faith once delivered and handed down by the apostles. The Faith in which we now stand, the Tradition we hand on to the next generations. And it's important to keep this day to affirm and underline the teaching so that it never does become neglected or watered down or rationalised, but that it continues to be handed down and changes lives for all time.