[Sermon delivered at St. Mary the Virgin Episcopal Church, Phoenix, Arizona, on the Feast of the Holy Trinity, June 12, 2022]
✠ In the Name of the LORD God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Trinity, one in Essence, without division and without confusion. Amen.
I have done a totally anecdotal and completely unscientific survey over the past several years. The impression I have gotten from talking to various priests, pastors, and other preachers is that they would rather have a root canal than preach about the Trinity. I can understand the trepidation. For the Biblical literalist or for someone who subscribes to scriptura sola, whose doctrine is based completely on the Bible, Holy Scripture’s coverage of the Trinity requires more digging than one would like. For others, the complex philosophy and theology they learned in seminary with the specific and exacting vocabulary along with the wreckage of centuries of dispute can be dim enthusiasm considerably. After all, who wants to touch off another “Ecumenical Council” inadvertently in their congregation and leave the bishop with the task of patching up a smoking crater where a parish once stood? As one Facebook meme puts it, it might be better to present slideshows of kittens instead of a sermon.
If we shy away however from preaching about the doctrine of the Trinity, we Christians can miss a golden opportunity to explore and learn about the economy of our salvation. The fact that God is personal, that He is close by us and capable of relationships, a property we call immanent, as well as that God is the One Who is beyond space and time as He made and holds space and time, a property we call transcendent, is of direct importance to us. As English speakers, however, we are at a bit of a disadvantage, because English really sucks at creating meaningful and intuitive theological words and had to rob other languages at gunpoint to build an arcane jargon which requires explanation. So, I will outline a few of those terms for you. Relax. There will NOT be a quiz at the end.
First, we have Ὕποστάσις which we call “Person.” The Greek word means not only the mask an actor uses to portray a character but also more importantly the personality that emphasizes a distinct individual. Second, we have Φύσις or “Nature,” which is the collection of characteristics, traits, and structure that makes a certain being what exactly they are. Third, we have Ὄυσία or “Being,” the substance or essence that is the core of individual existence. Nature and Being are very easy to confuse, and I will not torment you with that distinction, important though it is, today. Today is all about Person and Nature, how the Persons of God work together as a singularity, how the Nature of God and the Nature of Humanity work together in the Person of God the Word, and how this union achieves the re-union of God and Humanity effecting our deliverance from Death and Corruption.
Let us look to our readings for today. In our Old Testament lesson the Prophet Isaiah tells us about a vision he received from God in eternity, of God outside space and time, a view that Isaiah had a lot of trouble converting into words, a view that translators to this day have issues conveying properly. What I want to point out in this vision today among all the weird and wonderful things going on in this passage is that the beings before the presence of God have an oddly specific proclamation:
“Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts.”[1]
This thrice repeated attribute resounds also in the vision given to St. John the Divine:
“Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, Who was, and Who is, and Who is to come.”[2]
The Lord Who is One, Whose verbs are in the singular in Hebrew and Greek, still receives three times the attestation of “Holy.” Moreover, when Hebrew text refers to the Lord as God, the noun frequently is plural. Throughout the Old Testament we often find the word for God is אֱלֹהִים, not אֱל (even though that too does occur). אֱלֹהִים only uses a plural verb when it refers to the gods of the surrounding nations, not the God of Israel. However, when used for the God of Israel, it has a sense of a plurality within the singularity that begs for explanation.
The Scriptures that speak most clearly about this we find in the Gospel of John. Many people struggle with these Scriptures because of the close interplay of the Word, the Spirit, and the Father, and that frequently the Gospel of John use God and Father synonymously, but not exclusively. The Gospel opens with the beauty of the Word being coeternal with God because the Word was indeed God.[3]The Word participated fully in Creation,[4] and the Word became Human, the only Son of the Father,[5] and this Son who is in the bosom of the Father is Jesus Himself.[6] Further on, this same Jesus is engaged in discussion with Nicodemus, a member of the Judaean ruling elite, and here the Word gives Nicodemus a crash course in the cooperation of the Persons of God in bringing Humanity into relationship with the Lord God. In this discourse, Jesus tells Nicodemus that someone must be born again to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, that is, the person must put on a new Nature (there is that word again) which is given by the Spirit.[7] Jesus further explains that God loves the world so much that He gave His Son, the Word, that all who believe will partake in eternal Life.[8] The implication is clear. God, Whom Jesus calls the Father throughout all the Gospels, sent the Word, Who also is God, the same God, so that through faith in Him the Spirit of God can give a new Nature to those who believe, and thus become Children of God.[9]
Still with me? Does anyone need a moment?
This “economy of salvation” shows that like in the “economy of creation” the Persons of the Lord God Almighty interoperate seamlessly within each act of God. In creation, for example, God the Father brings forth creation out of nothing through God the Word as God the Holy Spirit “moves over the face of the waters,”[10] which is an analogy for the chaos of nothingness. It was a concerted, seamless effort of all three persons, united in Will, Nature, and Being, to pull off. Likewise in salvation, God the Father sends God the Word, Who effects our new Nature, which God the Spirit then gives us in our baptism. Granted these are gross simplifications, but they point us to the eternal Mystery of the selfless interplay of the Persons of the Trinity in action. Christians have tried for centuries to explain this act of love where each Person not only “dwells” in each other but also each suffuses each other and moves with and through each other without rupturing the shared Nature and Being and without losing what makes each Person distinct. Theologians finally gave up and coined a Greek word, Περιχώρησις, which roughly translates as “progressing around,” to describe this phenomenon.
Where this relationship of Persons within a single Being of a single Nature directly impacts us is in the hypostatic union of Divine and Human natures in the Person of God the Word. Those of you who were here when I last preached heard me talk about how in Jesus the Divine and Human enjoy a perfect union and how His Incarnation, Passion, Death, and Resurrection redeemed and rebuilt Human nature to restore us to an eternal relationship with God, finally free from Death and Corruption (better known as Sin).[11] When we believers are baptized and sealed by God the Holy Spirit[12] we are baptized into Christ and put on Christ,[13] that is, we put on the redeemed and rebuilt Human nature and become by the same Spirit Children of God.[14] As we grow into this new Nature of ours, as we feed this new Nature via the Sacraments, as we “crucify” our old Nature, we grow closer and closer to God in our relationship.
This growth, which we can refer to as, “The renewing of your minds,”[15] in the words of St. Paul, is also known as Θέωσις or Deification, where we become conformed to God. As we as individual Persons and Beings move into this new Nature we share with each other, we also move further into union with the Lord Jesus, God the Word. As we further move into union with God the Word, we also experience further union with God the Spirit and God the Father, that is, with the One God, because union with the one Person means union with all three Persons, because as the Trinity is one in Nature, the Trinity is also one in Being. St. Athanasius put it succinctly: “For He [God the Word] was made man that we might be made God; and He manifested Himself by a body that we might receive the idea of the unseen Father; and He endured the insolence of men that we might inherit immortality.”[16]
Because God the Father loves us, God the Word loves us, and therefore God the Spirit loves us. Because God loves us, God the Father sent God the Word to take our Nature upon Himself and by His Suffering redeem it and renew it. Because God loves us, God the Spirit bestows this new Nature on us who believe and also nurtures this new Nature through the Sacraments. Because God loves us, God the Holy Trinity has given us the means to enter a relationship with Him, the Trinity, the Lord God Almighty, which will last for eternity beyond ages of ages.
✠ Through the prayer of the Most Holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, Holy Father Dominic, and all the saints, Saviour save us. Amen.
[1] Is. 6.3 [2] Rev. 4.8 [3] Jn. 1.1-2 [4] Jn. 1.3 [5] Jn. 1.14 [6] Jn. 1.17-18 [7] Jn. 3.3, 3.5, 3.8 [8] Jn. 3.16-17 [9] Jn. 1.12-13 [10] Gen. 1.2 [11] Br. Lee Hughes, OP, On the New Nature, https://www.utaliistradere.com/post/on-the-new-nature, May 15, 2022 [12] 1 Cor. 12.13 [13] Gal. 3.27 [14] Rom. 8.12-17, Jn. 1.12 [15] Rom. 12.2 [16] St. Athanasius of Alexandria, On the Incarnation of the Word, 54.3