Trinity Sunday 1999

Speaking Index

Delivered 30 May 1999, the Saturday service based on the readings for Trinity Sunday.

This sermon is from very early, I either didn't compose a greeting or had it in another file. Oh well!

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Grace and peace to you from God our Father, and from his son Jesus the Christ, and from the Holy Spirit. Amen

The Gospel appointed for this day is The Great Commission, where we are told to go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the trinity, teaching them the truth as Jesus taught us. For this purpose, the church over the millennia has hammered out three creeds.

A creed is a formal statement of faith and belief, and by careful reading and teaching at some times, and by frequent repetition at others, we use these to keep the basic truth of the Gospel in our hearts and minds. We use the Apostles Creed frequently in worship when the Eucharist is shared, and at every baptism. This creed, as expounded by Martin Luther, is a central element in our instruction to our confirmation classes. It gets right down to the basics, it's short, and we can use it regularly.

The Nicene Creed has a little more detail, includes a little more repetition, and we use it in worship at various times, largely (I suspect) for the contrast. I wish we used it more often; "God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one being with the Father." Grand words, and true. Instead of "He will come again to judge the living and the dead," we say "He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end!" There isn't a single exclamation mark in the Nicene Creed, but it feels like there should be when you read it aloud.

In the fourth century there was a huge conflict in the Church, and the central issue was the divinity of Christ. Arius came to the logical – humanly logical - conclusion that Christ was a man that became God. Part of this appears to have been the appealing concept that if Jesus could become God, then through faithful effort we could also become God. This is obviously a powerful temptation. It's the same temptation that got us thrown out of the Garden of Eden. The teachings of Arius are called Arianism or The Arian Heresy. That's A-R-I-A-N, not to be confused with A-R-Y-A-N as in the Aryan Nation or the Aryan examplar that was behind Hitler's attempts at ethnic cleansing a few years back. But the division in the Church between the Arians and orthodox theology was intense.

Much of that conflict was fostered by the Roman Empire. Constantine had made Christianity the official religion of the empire, but Constantine wasn't exactly a saint. There are profound dangers when bishops play politics, and when politicians play theology, for both forces tend to distort and pervert the other. Constantine was succeeded by Constans, and when Constans was killed by his brother Constantius (these weren't particularly nice people), the empire was divided into three areas ruled by Constantius, Constantine II, and Julian. Constantius was greatly influenced by the Arians and supported bishops that advanced this heretical but more logical-sounding theology in Egypt, Byzantium, and the rest of the eastern part of the empire. Constantine II was more political, being based in Rome. Julian was committed to ending the official status of the Christian church completely, and sought a return to the classic religion of Greece.

Having been successful militarily in northern Europe, mostly what we know as Germany and France, Julian marched against Constantius surrounded by the priests of Mithra with their bizarre secret rituals and constant sacrifices of bulls. Julian had a full Roman legion, reinforced by several thousand fierce Gauls. He pursued Constantius and two short-handed Roman legions right past Kosovo, through Macedonia, and in to the desert. You don't have to imagine the locals gathering up their children and belongings and running for the hills, you can watch it on the evening news to this day.

Julian prevailed, and Constantius died. To Julian's disappointment, this was not a military victory, Constantius came down with a fever and died in his tent. Despite his disappointment, Julian took the death of Constantius as a sign from the gods. It was a corrupt time, and there were plenty of members of the Imperial family being poisoned or stabbed by their adversaries, and the administration was mostly controlled by wealthy, fat, eunuchs.

So imagine these four powerful forces. We have the manipulative administrators attempting to rule the empire for their own financial benefit. We have Julian the Apostate, hoping to renew the panoply of Greek gods with all the priests and temples and oracles. We have the Arians denying the true divinity of Christ. And the one catholic and apostolic church attempting to defend the orthodox theology of the Holy Trinity.

The Church clearly needed a calm and persuasive voice to unite Christians behind the true nature of God. Someone who could soothe the hurts and control the ambitions of wayward bishops. Imagine what Pastor Jim could have done. Instead, there was Athanasius.

Personally, I'm always partial to loud prickly advocates. If there is anyone in the Old Testament with whom I feel kinship it is the prophet Amos. You get the impression that if he couldn't go yell at the king and call him names Amos would have rather stayed in bed. In the New Testament my heart belongs to Peter. Brave and outspoken, committed to Jesus in the most vehement style, he managed to betray the Christ three times just in one night. Anyone who doesn't think God has a sense of humor should remember that Jesus called this erratic firebrand a rock.

In the early church, Athanasius is my man. The Arian heresy was profoundly offensive to him, and he let everyone know it. He fought and preached and worked to advance other bishops and deacons to fight the Arian heresy. In the political climate of the day it shouldn't come as a big surprise that he was exiled from his post five different times, for about eighteen years all together, hiding in the wilderness of Syria for five years at one point.

Athanasius may be responsible for changing the way Christians made the sign of the cross. Because the cross was used privately by a persecuted church, the early Christians are believed to have used the small covered cross on their forhead and breast, like we use in Baptism, or like many Roman and Anglican Christians use at the beginning of the Gospel, making the sign of a small cross over the forehead, the lips, and the heart. But with Christianity accepted in Rome, the more obvious and familiar form, making a large cross over the forehead, breast, and both shoulders, was a more clear symbol of the Trinity.

Athanasius didn't write the creed that bears his name, it was actually put together a hundred years or more after his death in 373, and in the style of Rome rather than his native Alexandria. He had more to do with the Nicene Creed, he was secretary to Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, at the Council of Nicaea when the Nicene Creed was adopted. Quicunque Vult, or the Athanasian Creed, is the third of the three creeds that appear in the Lutheran Book of Worship, and it very clearly is exactly what Athanasius believed.

The Arian Heresy was not stamped out in Athanasius' lifetime, and the creed was still needed in the year 500, approximately when it was probably written. In fact, researching some of the points of history and commentary on the Internet in the last few days, there are still remnants of Arianism at large in the world, fifteen hundred years later.

I think there are two reasons that Lutherans aren't comfortable with this third creed. First, it's long, and we seem to try to keep most services under an hour. The other is that there is a little too much threat of judgment, threats of eternal fire, in the opening and closing of the creed. In light of the adversarial times in which all three of the creeds were being adopted this emphatic style is understandable, and since I think we all believe the core of the Athanasian Creed it certainly isn't threatening to us. But it's still not our style.

Aside from the brief bombastic points at the beginning and end, the Athanasian Creed is in two parts. First is the nature of God, making it very clear that God is God, God is Eternal, and that though we address God in Three Persons, each of them is uncreated, eternal, unlimited, and almighty, without division or hierarchy. The second part makes it just as clear that Jesus is man, born in the world, existing fully as man, not split into God parts and man parts.

The offical statement of the ELCA regarding the Athanasian Creed is this: "This creed is of uncertain origin. It was supposedly prepared in the time of Athanasius, the great theologian of the fourth century, although it seems more likely that it dates from the fifth or sixth centuries and is Western in character. It assists the Church in combating two errors that undermined Bible teaching: the denial that God's Son and the Holy Spirit are of one being with the Father; the other a denial that Jesus Christ is true God and true man in one person. It declares that whoever rejects the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of Christ is without the saving faith. Traditionally it is considered the "Trinitarian Creed" and read aloud in corporate worship on Trinity Sunday."

This is Trinity Sunday, but I won't insist that you read it aloud. If you'd like to follow along, it is found on pages 54 and 55 of the Lutheran Book of Worship.

Whoever wants to be saved should above all cling to the catholic faith.

Whoever does not guard it whole and inviolable will doubtless perish eternally.

Now this is the catholic faith: We worship one God in trinity and the Trinity in unity, neither confusing the persons nor dividing the divine being.

For the Father is one person, the Son is another, and the Spirit is still another.

But the deity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, equal in glory, coeternal in majesty.

What the Father is, the Son is, and so is the Holy Spirit.

Uncreated is the Father; uncreated is the Son; uncreated is the Spirit.

The Father is infinite; the Son is infinite; the Holy Spirit is infinite.

Eternal is the Father; eternal is the Son; eternal is the Spirit:

And yet there are not three eternal beings, but one who is eternal; as there are not three uncreated and unlimited beings, but one who is uncreated and unlimited.

Almighty is the Father; almighty is the Son; almighty is the Spirit:

And yet there are not three almighty beings, but one who is almighty.

Thus the Father is God; the Son is God; the Holy Spirit is God:

And yet there are not three gods, but one God.

Thus the Father is Lord; the Son is Lord; the Holy Spirit is Lord: And yet there are not three lords, but one Lord.

As Christian truth compels us to acknowledge each distinct person as God and Lord, so catholic religion forbids us to say that there are three gods or lords.

The Father was neither made nor created nor begotten; the Son was neither made nor created, but was alone begotten of the Father; the Spirit was neither made nor created, but is proceeding from the Father and the Son.

Thus there is one Father, not three fathers; one Son, not three sons; one Holy Spirit, not three spirits.

And in this Trinity, no one is before or after, greater or less than the other; but all three persons are in themselves, coeternal and coequal; and so we must worship the Trinity in unity and the one God in three persons.

Whoever wants to be saved should think thus about the Trinity.

Okay, there's the end of the first part, declaring the triune nature of God. Here's the second part, declaring the equally true and human nature of Christ:

It is necessary for eternal salvation that one also faithfully believe that our Lord Jesus Christ became flesh.

For this is the true faith that we believe and confess: That our Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son, is both God and man.

He is God, begotten before all worlds from the being of the Father, and he is man, born in the world from the being of his mother -- existing fully as God, and fully as man with a rational soul and a human body; equal to the Father in divinity, subordinate to the Father in humanity.

Although he is God and man, he is not divided, but is one Christ.

He is united because God has taken humanity into himself; he does not transform deity into humanity.

He is completely one in the unity of his person, without confusing his natures.

For as the rational soul and body are one person, so the one Christ is God and man.

He suffered death for our salvation.

He descended into hell and rose again from the dead.

He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

At his coming all people shall rise bodily to give an account of their own deeds.

Those who have done good will enter eternal life, those who have done evil will enter eternal fire.

This is the catholic faith. One cannot be saved without believing this firmly and faithfully.

And since we do, the people of God say, Amen.