Good Morning Friends,
Today is Father’s Day and as we sail through some scripture and thoughts regarding our heavenly and earthly fathers we consider the trinity of God. For like us God manifests as a person in three ways. I like to think of the Father as God for us and Jesus as God with us and the Spirit as being God in us. The belief in a God in three persons is expressed in the Apostle’s and Nicene Creeds. These creeds are helpful to believe in for growing our relationship with the divine, but also in our own personal growth in relationships with others. Here it is helpful to remember we were made in God’s image but are not God. Here the thought of a triune expression in humans is of value, not because in reflects how we work so much as it engages us in approximating an understanding of the complexity of God in relationship with us.
Today we look for the Creator, Sustainer and the Redeemer in scripture and in our daily life. Today we seek a more complete understanding of the Trinity. However, what is more important is answering this question in the affirmative: Do We Have A Healthy Threefold Relationship With God?
Scripture: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 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 glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”
John 16:12-15 (NRSV)
So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
Genesis 1:27 (NRSV)
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
Matthew 28:19 (NRSV)
Then Jesus began to teach his disciples that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.
Mark 8:31 (NIV)
The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth— when he had not yet made earth and fields, or the world’s first bits of soil. When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master worker; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.
Proverbs 8:22-31 (NRSV)
Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
Romans 5:1-5 (NRSV)
Message: Today we look for the Creator, Sustainer and the Redeemer in scripture and in our daily life in the communities in which we live and work, in the hope of being of one accord. We see this hope of unity perhaps most clearly through the commandment of Christ that we love one another. Pentecost gives us another clear communication of the hope for unity that we be made into one. But our examples of a human unity on a personal and collective basis seem so imperfect. The Trinity, however, is a divine unity, the one and only perfect unity, of how three distinct Persons are together as One. Now most would like to simplify the explanation of the Trinity as a “do under others as you would have them do unto you” model of theology, but that is too simple. Our experience of God is more complicated than a walk on the beach at sunset. There is a vast ocean of experiences awaiting us and we need help in navigating them. That help comes in a better understanding of how life is woven together with understanding the Trinity in a more complete way. Even though we recite the creed every week that states our belief in the Trinity we too often deny the process. It is however a very practical chart for our course based on scripture and the experiences of thousands of people who have come before. Thinking about our voyage, through the eyes of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit can be helpful in our relationships. So today we think about the Trinity as a model for community…of men and women and children in relationship on a ship. Paul who had experience with ship wrecks, tells us how we come into alignment with God and stay off the rocks. It is through Christ’s grace that we can stand before God the Father as justified. It is through the Holy Spirit, that this grace is applied into our lives and perhaps most vividly when as Christians we fight for justice and for human rights, for a compassionate and caring society. When we do that, we are acting in the name of the Trinity. Here faith in the Trinitarian God, in the God of personal interrelationship and shared love, commits us to struggle with all our strength against poverty, exploitation, oppression and disease. Precisely because we know that God is three-in-one, we cannot remain indifferent to any suffering, by any humans, in any part of the world. In community, we learn the divine nature, that the Father does nothing by Himself in which the Son does not take part, and that the Son does not act separately in anything without the Spirit; but every activity
in community that extends from God to the creation. . . starts from the Father and goes forth through the Son and is completed in the Holy Spirit. The transformation of human communities into a life of Trinitarian mutuality, communion, collaboration and collective impact is very difficult. God’s grace is needed in abundance, to be sure, yet even then the challenge is daunting. We need good servant leaders who know the waters and the chart as well as a willing crew. Then human communities begin to be transfigured into the likeness of the Holy Trinity.
And So, Modern thinkers say to have true happiness we need three things. We need to have something to do, someone to love and a future to look forward to. Maybe it is a cognitive bias but in the western world we are ruled by threes. Three-oriented phrases are everywhere. So, whether you are going down for the third time or the third time is the charm, you will find a phrase for your situation. Most of us even have three names. And we imagine it on the world as well. We say there where three kings bringing gifts to the baby Jesus, though scripture does not give us a number. The importance of three through is throughout the Bible. Interestingly its importance is not in all cultures. For the American Indian it is four and for the Chinese, I think it is five. But for those of us reading this it is three. Three men appeared to Abraham. Peter denied Christ three times and was forgiven three times. There were three crosses on Calvary. Jesus cried three times in the Bible. He cried when he heard about his friend, Lazarus’ death. He also had tears of sorrow for the city of Jerusalem. And finally, Jesus had tears of struggle in the Garden, known as Gethsemane. There are the three parables of the lost sheep, coin and son. Things come in threes. There is faith, hope and love. There is the past, present and future. And the trinity of God, well it is just about everywhere, and its doctrine is wrapped up very nicely in Paul’s letter to the Romans found in today’s scripture. I think it is there for a purpose. Seeing through the eyes of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit can be helpful. You see, the best of relationships is formed in threes: you, me and Jesus…in the trinity of Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Here God is the good foundation for the future. He is Father, Son and Holy Spirit and gives us balance in our journey, our pursuit of the life that is really life. Here God is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit but the Holy Spirit is not the Son and the Son is not the Father and the Father is not the Holy Spirit. Maybe today is a good time to remember that Jesus gave the weary and stressed out three commands: to come to Him…to take His yoke and to learn from Him. He personally invites us to come and see….to come and drink….to come and eat…and then to come and work….to come and be changed…to come and be transformed. Maybe I should have stuck with three points.
Pray we spend time getting to know God. Pray
that out of our trouble, as we discover and rediscover who we were born to be and that we become a tribute to the Trinity.
Pray we see the Spirit in the Sails, the Maker in the Ship and Christ in the Captain. Pray we see the Three as One and the One as Three. Pray that overcoming the three sins of omission, commission and disposition. Pray we see when other burdens are meant to be shared, shouldered or shed. Pray we become of one mind realizing that only three things are important in life… the people we love…. the people who love us and where we are going when we die.
Pray we be a Body of believers in whose consciousness we live, move and have our very being. Pray we recognize the divine presence in three dimensions. Pray we realize that we are useless unless we are going somewhere. Pray we realize that we are dependent on the winds of the Spirit and a Captain to steer, and a crew to properly set the sails. Pray we realize that the Captain of the ship keeps a log. Pray we see beyond the Spirit in the Sails, the Maker in the Ship and Christ in the Captain. Pray we see the Three as One and the One as Three in the communities in which we live. Pray we learn from the Trinity to honor our Father.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 