Last Sunday we heard from Nicky, about the dramatic arrival of the Holy Spirit
that caused observers to assume that those in the room had had too much to
drink, even if it was just 9.00 in the morning. Today, we move on to The Great
Commissioning, where that Holy Spirit becomes the living toolkit.
Today is also known as Trinity Sunday, ‘God in three persons’. I am reliable
informed that the word ‘Trinity’ does not appear in the Bible, but the concepts
was developed by Early Christians, to capture the plurality of God. On the
Trinity Sunday, we grapple with understanding the partnership between God the
Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit - in operation. This can be a
complex concept, and, by the Grace of God, I will try and unpack it.
Jesus had a thing about mountains; we are all familiar with the Sermon on the
Mount, in Matthew Chapter 5. Today, He meets up with the remaining 11
disciples on a mountain in Galilee, to wave them off to start their work. But not
empty handed! Hold on to that!
We are probably familiar with Jesus’s reassurance to his disciples that he would
not be leaving them on their own when he returns to the Father. He promises to
send the Holy Spirit to guide, equip and comfort them. Accordingly, in John
16:13-15 we read [in Jesus’ own words],
"13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He
will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you
what is yet to come. 14 He will glorify me because it is from me that he will
receive what he will make known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is
mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make
known to you.”
In this text we are introduced to the three-way partnership. Jesus’s emphasis on
‘all that belongs to the Father is mine’ is repeated in today’s gospel earlier:
‘ 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has
been given to me.” Jesus asserts this claim just before instructing the disciples
to (quote) ‘go and make disciples of all nations..’.
Thus far, Jesus has made an irrefutable case of Him and the Father being the
same, yet distinct beings; there are many other similar references –For instance,
he rebukes his disciple Philip for asking him to show them the Father, his
response in, John 14:9, ‘If you have seen me, you have seen the Father’.
Now; what about the Holy Spirit, in whose name Baptism is to be made? Is this
an addendum of sorts?
Let’s go right back to Creation – Genesis Chapter 1.
‘v.2 ‘ 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of
the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.’
In v.26 God says, ‘“Let us make mankind in our image…’ Who is God talking
with here? I put it to you that the threesome Trinity was already at
work, and we (you and I) are a minuscule outcome of that partnership, and
inside our being the three intersect. It is this original conversation that is
poetically articulated in the Christmas reading from Jn 1 v.2
2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made;
without him nothing was made that has been made.’
One preacher pulled together the Trinity concept practically, for me.
‘God created the plan of salvation, Jesus actioned it, and the Holy Spirit
implements it in our daily lives.’
With that statement in mind, one cannot separate one from the other!
This is what Jesus [the actioner] is talking about when, in the Great
Commission, He reminds his doubters that He is God. This Commission comes
soon after his Resurrection, a period when some of the guards who kept watch
over his tomb had been paid to silence the Resurrection story! A reminder that
corruption in the media is an age-old habit! The fact that over 2,000 years on we
speak confidently of his resurrection means that Truth cannot be wiped away.
Apostle Paul takes that Great Commission to heart, during his long and
complicated Ministry. It is towards the end of his third visit to the Corinthians
who he regarded as friends, that we get today’s epistle. This text has been
adapted as the Benediction during Church services, therefore [like the Nicene &
Apostles’ Creeds] is very familiar. Unlike the Creeds that we say together, the
Benediction is said to us, by the clergy [rightly so]. The risk is it has become so
familiar that we don’t engage properly with it. We need to be more reflective of
its embedded Trinitarian concept. I suggest a three-way reflective approach:
(i) Grace is something we offer each other regularly, in closing prayers.
When we next offer it, we need to remember the price our Lord Jesus
[the Actioner] paid so that we can access His Grace, freely! Like
Christ, we must suffer a form of death to sin [repeatedly] and
resurrection to new life, when we allow God to enter our lives.
(ii) Fellowship of the Holy Spirit demands that we remember what is
embodied in that fellowship. Therefore, we must keep company, daily,
with the Holy Spirit because in so doing we keep company with God’s
Truth, Guidance and Comfort.
(iii) The Love of God [the Master planner] is beyond conventional
understanding. To attempt to rationalise it is to reduce God to human
ways of doing things. That love of God is summed up in another well-
known verse, John 3:16 ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his
one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but
have eternal life.’ The love-currency of my eternal life and your
eternal life is valued in Jesus’ death and Resurrection. We need the
Holy Spirit to constantly remind us of that love-currency and to make
it real.
So, from today, when we offer each other Grace; when we recite the Creed
together; when we receive the Benediction, let us pay more attention to the
Trinity underpinning each of those taken-for-granted prayers.
I pray, finally, that you and I, firmly rooted and established in Godly love,
drawing daily on the fellowship of the Spirit, may feel the same power that
Jesus unleashed during the Great Commission, so that we can grasp and
experience the vastness of love of God, that surpasses human knowledge.
Amen