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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
On our secular calendar, today is Father’s Day; so, Happy Father’s Day to all of you fathers. On our church calendar, today is the feast of The Holy Trinity, the God Whom some of us who had better human fathers may have come to know better through their greater love, or Whom others who had worse human fathers may not have come to know as well through their lesser love. Regardless of our human fathers, however, considering today’s Gospel Reading this morning we realize that God the Heavenly Father, Son, and Holy Spirit reveals Himself to us in such a way through His Word that “Our honoring the Holy Trinity is a matter of death or life”.
At first listen, today’s Gospel Reading may seem to be an odd choice for Trinity Sunday, especially since the Holy Spirit is not explicitly mentioned in the Reading (as near as I can tell, the choice of this particular Reading for Trinity Sunday was new, at least to the LCMS, with the publication of Lutheran Service Book in 2006). Nevertheless, as the Jewish leaders and Jesus continued their discussion in St. John’s Divinely‑inspired Gospel account about Jesus’s identity and about Jesus’s and the Jews’ parentage and possession (John 8:12-47)—whether of God, Abraham, or the devil—the work of the Holy Spirit is at least implicit in the Reading. For, it is through God’s Word that the Holy Spirit then was trying to lead the Jews—as He today tries to lead us—to honor Jesus as the Son Who He is, and so also honor the Father (John 16:14). Such honoring of the Holy Trinity keeps one from seeing eternal death and instead having eternal life.
As we heard Jesus say, the Jewish leaders were dishonoring Him, although not, as Jesus also says, that He was seeking His own glory. Earlier Jesus had said truly that the Jewish leaders could not bear to hear His Word because they were children of the devil, who was a murderer from the beginning and a liar and the father of lies (John 7:38-45). So, in keeping with that character, the Jewish leaders in response called Jesus a “Samaritan” and said falsely that Jesus had a demon, as they also claimed falsely that God the Father was their God. In connection with perhaps Jesus’s most explicit claim to be true God, the Gospel Reading arguably also gives us the most radical example of the Jews’ rejection and dishonoring of Jesus and so also of the Father, not only the Jews’ error of unbelief but also their active fight against the work of the Holy Spirit. Lies and death are opposed to the truth and life.
Jesus said that if anyone keeps His Word, that person will never see eternal death. Jesus raises a very personal question for each and every one of us: do we individually keep His Word? As noted last week, such keeping includes treasuring and obeying His Word, and such keeping follows as a result of our loving Jesus (John 14:23). What we think, say, and do should be controlled by God’s love, which should be evident in how we live our lives, not only towards God but also towards all other people. If we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that, not only by nature, but also too often in actuality we are like the Jewish leaders whose thoughts, words, and deeds were contrary to God’s will and so more like the devil’s will.
In the Gospel Reading Jesus said that God the Father, Who seeks Jesus’s glory, judges whether we honor and glorify Him. Our dis‑honoring and not glorifying the Triune God warrants our tasting (or “experiencing”) not only temporal death but also the never‑ending torment of eternal death, unless, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we turn in sorrow from our sinful nature and all our sin and trust God the Father to forgive us for the sake of His Son, Jesus the Christ. For, when we so repent, then God forgives our dis-honoring Him and all our sin, whatever our sin might be.
As the New Testament strikingly makes clear, Jesus, as God in human flesh, is certainly entitled to all of the same honor and glory as God the Father and the Holy Spirit. So, as a result, we confess in the Athanasian Creed the three Blessed Persons’ equal glory. Unlike Abraham who was born in time, already in the beginning—even before the beginning the Old Testament Reading said (Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31)—the Second Person of the Trinity was alongside God the Father, sharing His divine nature (John 1:1). Yet, in time, the Second Person also became flesh and showed forth, to those who saw by faith, His glory as of the only Son from the Father full of grace and truth (John 1:14). Jesus kept the Father’s Word and honored the Father perfectly; He lived the perfect life that we fail to live. But, especially in St. John’s account, that glory seemingly contradictorily was revealed especially in Jesus’s death on the cross (John 12:23-24), which death He suffered in our place, for our failures to keep His Word and honor Him, and so for our salvation, God’s work in His Name. In spite of that death, Jesus did not stay dead! As we heard in the Second Reading (Acts 2:14a, 22-36), God the Father raised Jesus up and exalted Him to His right hand, and, having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, Jesus poured the Spirit out on His apostles for the benefit of His Church.
The Triune God’s Word becomes the faithful apostles’ word (for example, John 15:20). The Holy Spirit is given with and works through that Word as it is read and preached to groups such as this and as it is applied to us individually combined with water in Holy Baptism, with the pastor’s touch in individual Holy Absolution, and with bread and wine that is Christ’s Body and Blood in the Sacrament of the Altar. Especially at the Baptismal Font, as the one Name of the three Blessed Persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is put upon us, any unclean spirits are cast out and way is made for the Holy Spirit to enter us, as not only forgiveness of sins is worked but also rescue from death and the devil. In all of these ways, God brings forth from us His strength, honor, and praise, even, as we sang in today’s Psalm (Psalm 8; antiphon v.9), from babies and infants (confer Matthew 21:6; 11:25; 1 Corinthians 1:27).
In the Gospel Reading, Jesus said that Abraham rejoiced that He would see Jesus’s day and that Abraham saw that day and was glad. Perhaps because there are no specific Old Testament passages that precisely match Jesus’s claims, commentators differ as to both precisely when Abraham rejoiced and exactly what Jesus’s day was that Abraham saw. Yet regardless, the point seems to have been that rather than opposing Jesus in Abraham’s name falsely, the Jewish leaders should have been rejoicing as Abraham did. Likewise we also should rejoice that we freely see and participate in God’s work of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, especially as we are united with Him in His Body and Blood present in the same miraculous way that He most likely escaped from the Jewish leaders attempt to stone Him. As part of the Church constituted by God’s saving action, we rejoice now not only in the fulfillment of what the Triune God has already done for us and with us but also in anticipation of what the Triune God will still do for us and with us, such as with the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come.
Regardless of the kinds of human fathers we have had, a loving Heavenly Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one Triune God Who acts to save us. As we have considered the Gospel Reading this morning we have realized that “Our honoring the Holy Trinity is a matter of death or life”. Although we have dishonored the Trinity in the past, dishonor Him now, and will dishonor Him in the future, with daily repentance and faith we live in His free forgiveness of sins, and so we have not death but life. Ultimately, we do not reject the Trinity’s work toward us but receive it with rejoicing. We give honor and glory to the Triune God especially because He has shown His mercy to us.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +