This was preached on Trinity Sunday, 10 June 2001. The sermon gave some background to the concept, and tried to deal with the complexity of the Trinity. You may like to read it and consider the issue for yourself again.

Introduction:

Today is Trinity Sunday, the day when we think about and celebrate God in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Three in one, and one in three. Now don’t tell me you find that easy to understand, how that works. Because if you do, you should be standing here instead of me.

So let’s go on a little exploration together and see what we can discover about the Trinity.

Let’s explore how and when this difficult idea of the Trinity emerged?

History:

St John's gospel is thought to be the last of the four gospels to have been written. It's thought to date from the end of the first century, or even as late as the beginning of the second century. That's sixty or seventy years after Jesus' death. That's like writing now, in 2001, of the period between the two World wars in English history. This gospel is very much a reflection, a meditation on all that had happened.

Without question Jesus had been a miracle worker during his lifetime. He had healed the sick, changed water into wine, even raised the dead. But in that first century world of magic and superstition, there were many miracle workers.

According to St. Mark, Jesus was regarded as a prophet. But he doesn't seem to have been regarded as God. Peter called him the Christ, the expected Messiah who would therefore save the Jewish race, but even Peter didn't refer to him as God.

The worship of Jesus as God himself, as God become human, seems to have come later, after the crucifixion and resurrection. God's glory shone forth from that figure hanging there on the cross. Suffering so much, yet still able to pour love and forgiveness onto those who had caused his execution. And when, only thirty-six hours later, he was seen again alive and well by many eye-witnesses, then people began to worship him.

What a problem for a religion whose first commandment was: "You shall have no other gods before me."!

John's gospel is beginning to identify and address this problem. So in John 14, Jesus tries to explain something about the relationship between himself and God the father, God the creator.

"I am in the Father," he says, "and the Father is in me. I am going to the Father. Ask anything you like in my name and I'll do it for you. If you keep my commandments, you'll do even greater things than me. Because I'm going to ask the Father to send you another advocate, another supporter, the Spirit of Truth." And this is echoed in today's passage from John 16, where Jesus promises the Holy Spirit to declare to his friends everything about both himself and the Father.

So here already some early idea of a three-in-one God is beginning to emerge. Father and Son somehow in each other, and Spirit, to come later. But as the idea emerged, so the difficulties multiplied. How can you worship two, or even three Beings in a religion, which acknowledges only one God?

It was a problem, which was to exercise the Church for over three hundred years. There were those who decided Jesus wasn't really human, but was God in disguise. So that Jesus didn't really suffer on the cross, because God, the Almighty, the Creator, couldn't possibly suffer like any ordinary human being.

Then there were those who believed Jesus' sufferings and crucifixion were necessary for salvation, but thought Jesus didn't really die, and believed therefore, there was no resurrection of the body.

Another group believed God existed in different modes. Sometimes he would be in the Son mode as Jesus, sometimes in the Spirit mode, sometimes in the Father mode. But he couldn't be all three at the same time.

And there were those who believed only the Father was really God. Jesus was created by God, but didn't share either God's divine nature, or his essence, his Spirit. So Jesus was a bit like Superman, but wasn't actually God.

And there were all shades of opinion in between. At one time one idea caught on, at another a completely different idea. There were huge splits in the Church. Massive quarrels and dissension, beside which disagreements in the Church of England over recent years pale into insignificance!

The arguments became such a scandal in the Church, that all the bishops finally got together in the year 325 at the great council of Nicea. At this council, a statement of belief was agreed and signed by all but two of the bishops. And so the Nicene creed was born. And we still repeat this statement of belief, the Nicene creed, every Sunday at every service. If you've ever wondered about the words of the creed, you can perhaps begin to see it's very much a statement refuting those heresies current in the 4th century. The original statement of Christian belief, found in the pages of the NT was much shorter and much simpler. It just said "Jesus is Lord". Perhaps it was too simple for human minds.

Today:

So how can we understand the Trinity today? Or is it just an outmoded belief, which ought to be ditched by a Church, which wants to remain credible in the 21st century?

Pandit Nehru once said: "God is in all people, but all people are not in God - and that is why they suffer."

I believe that to be true. I believe God is in all human beings, and was in the human being Jesus of Nazareth. But Jesus was also in God. He was totally in God. He was in God to such an extent that he and God were one. That his thoughts were God's thoughts, his ways were God's ways. "I am in the Father, and the Father is in me."

Jesus showed the heights human beings could reach, if and when they were perfectly in tune with God. Jesus said: "You must believe me when I say I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Believe it on the evidence of this (my) work, if for no other reason." But I guess the God within each human being is actually God's Spirit. Or perhaps the Spirit of Jesus. Although maybe that's one and the same thing, if the Son is in the Father and the Father is in the Son.

Jesus said: "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine."

This Spirit of Truth, Spirit of Jesus, Spirit of God, however you prefer to think of it, is not just a little piece of God, but is God himself. Has all the characteristics of God, the knowledge of God, the wisdom of God, the nature of God.

Every tiny cell within a human being, has all the DNA and all the chromosomes and therefore all the individual characteristics of that human being. And therefore is that human being and no other. We can be identified by our cells. Because every cell I possess carries a blueprint of me, of the human being I am.

And maybe it's similar with the Spirit of God within. Maybe it's a bit like having one cell or a clump of cells with the blueprint of God. And maybe that's how it was for Jesus too, except that all his cells carried the blueprint of God.

So do we still need the idea of the Trinity today? I think we need it more than ever. Because in a world of quadraphonic sound and three dimensional viewing and movement, we need a God of colour, a God who moves within the relationship of Father, Son and Spirit, not a God who is simply monochrome or monophonic or static.

God is over us and around us and within us. He knows from experience what it is to be human, yet he has the whole world in his hands.

I want to finish with a quotation from Mother Julian of Norwich, the 12^th Century mystic: