LOVE, GRACE COMMUNION
Genesis 1:1-2:4a
2nd Corinthians 13: 11-13
Today, we begin our sermon series on “The Hard Questions of Faith”. Over the next nine weeks, we are going to be engaging some of the matters of faith with which those in our congregations have been grappling. I want to offer, again, a word of thanks for all those who submitted questions; it was humbling to read your sincerity and where you struggle with faith issues. My hope and prayer is that we can walk with one another
through these sensitive matters over the weeks to come, and beyond.
The first question in our series challenges us to engage the idea of the nature of God—more specifically, the idea of the Trinity, God in Three. The concept of the Trinity has been the central core of the Christian faith since the early 3rd century—about the time when Christianity was becoming established as its own faith, rather than a branch of the Jewish faith. Even at that point, people of faith struggled with this idea and questioned how it could be possible.
The past 1700 years have done little to answer those questions.
It is difficult for humans to get our minds around the idea of God being Three in One and One in Three. We want some evidence, some way to prove or be shown how this is possible. The reality is, though, God is not a problem to be solved or an answer that can we can arrive at based on a mathematical formula or set of proofs. Instead, God is a mystery to be embraced, a truth on which the rest of our faith hinges. Through the lens of the Trinity, we can see more clearly how God is acting in this world. Through the lens of the Trinity we make ourselves
available to experience the Love of God, the Grace of God, and Communion with God.
One of the primary ways in which God the Father, the first person of the Trinity, is known is in and through the act of Creation. The story of Scripture, the world in fact, begins with Creation. Above all else, Creation was an act of Love on the part of God. Consider, if you will, all the wonders of the world: the roaring seas, the mountains rising to the sky, the sky in all its beauty, each of us with all our diversity. All these are loving creations of God. You see, God’s desire was and is to share God’s existence. God didn’t have to create anything, but because God wanted to share that existence, God called all things into being and because God called everything into being, God’s love for the Creation is steadfast and unchanging.
Through Creation, we see the height, depth, and breadth of the love of God.
Creation, however, is not the only role of God the Father. The Father serves as the provider for the creation. God did not merely engage in the act of creation and then leave Creation to fend for itself. Instead, it is God who provides all the creation needs. God serves also as the “moral compass” for Creation. God is the standard by which all things in the creation are judged. God is the holiest and most righteous Being—therefore, that which God proclaims as good and just should be the ideals of creation. Since the creation so often falls short of those ideals, God serves also as the Healer of creation from the corruption of sin (which, incidentally, we will explore in our next sermon). In these activities as well—providence,
judge, healer—we know and experience the love of God the Father.
The second person in this idea of Trinity is God the Son, Jesus Christ the Gracious Savior. We like to speak of and think of God as gracious. It resonates of kindness and goodness. A simple definition of grace would be “unmerited favor”. In other words, when we recognize the grace of God, we are speaking of God’s favor toward us (or Creation) even though we don’t deserve it. This grace is made known most clearly and definitively in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
It is through Christ that the grace of God is exhibited to Creation. Without Jesus, grace remains an unknown. Without Jesus, grace remains a mystery. But through Jesus, we behold and experience an extravagant grace that seeks to be the healer of every ill and the restorer of the human soul and condition. Through Christ, God’s grace is actively working in the life of each and everyone on earth…all 6 billion of us. The story of Creation tells us that human beings were created in the image of God. That image was good and perfect. Along the way, humans got off course and that image was tarnished. In grace, God is seeking to transform humans back into that image. The work of God of the Son is to transform Creation away from sin
and move Creation closer and closer to the image in which Creation was originally made.
The third person in the Trinity is God the Holy Spirit. At Pentecost, we celebrate the outpouring of the Spirit upon the church. The Spirit is God’s presence in the world in the here and now. The Spirit works to maintain communion between us and each other and us and God. In most cases, when we hear the word communion we think of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. In this case, communion refers to peace, fellowship, or relationship. Whenever relationships are formed or transformed, whenever peace becomes the rule of the day, whenever there is harmony and love, whenever the church is
empowered to proclaim the mystery of faith, there is the work of God the Holy Spirit.
There are so many things about faith that are mysterious. They are mysterious in that they invite us to see with the eyes of our heart and to believe, even in the absence of provable evidence. Mystery is at the center of faith…God is mysterious. I can’t say it any more plainly or clearly. In spite of that mystery, though, we are still invited to worship and praise, celebrate and give thanks, trust and obey; not because we understand it all, but because faith would have it no other way.
May God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, be given praise and glory.
AMEN.
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