Trinity

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Three in one. Amen.

The question of the day, I said when I preached the first time that there will always be questions. So somebody's got to give me the answer. Raise your hand if you can tell me how many times the word Trinity appears in the Bible.

Raise your hand. How many people know? Nobody else knows? Well, it's a trick question because it doesn't appear.

The word Trinity does not appear in the Scriptures. Although the word Trinity doesn't appear in the Bible, the concept is clear throughout the Bible.

It's so clear that all Christians believe in the Trinity and must believe in the Trinity to call themselves Christian.

It's publicly proclaimed here in Trinity when we recite the Nicene Creed or the Apostles' Creed each time we worship together.

As Anglicans, we profess our belief in the 39 articles of religion that begins with the belief of the Trinity.

Now, we can find that in our Book of Common Prayer. It's 39 articles. I'm not going to read all 39. But you should study these because it's important to our faith.

And we as clergy profess and vow to believe and teach these 39 articles of religion. And the first one is the faith of the Holy Trinity.

It says, Hard to understand, isn't it?

You know why? Because it's a mystery. It really is incomprehensible. We believe it by faith. And we sing a lot of songs about the Trinity.

The first song that actually held a concept of the Trinity was written in 1774. And in the third verse, it was like we sang, holy, holy, holy.

But in the third verse, it had the Trinity in there. And at 1774, there wasn't a theological basis for the Trinity.

But this mystery was proclaimed in the third verse of that song back in 1774. And in Scripture, we see the concept of the Trinity all the way back to Genesis.

Think about it. In Genesis, God said, Let us make man in our image, in our likeness. He didn't say, let me make man in my image.

Or my likeness. Did he? So when they wrote Genesis, there was some knowledge that God was more than one person.

Let us make man in our image. And even in Deuteronomy, it says, The Lord is one. In the New Testament, we see a lot of concepts.

My favorite in the New Testament is John 1. I preached it at Christmas time. John 1, In the beginning was the Word.

And the Word was with God. And the Word was God. So that gives us the concept, John gives us the concept, that the Word, Jesus, was with God.

And He was God. At the baptism, the clouds opened up. A voice came out of the clouds saying, This is my beloved Son.

And a dove appeared. And that was in Matthew's Gospel. In Matthew's Gospel, Jesus also sends out His disciples to baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Now we know, that they really didn't have a clue, what He was talking about. And we really, it's hard to understand, we believe the mystery, of the Trinity.

And that's what we have to hold on to. We believe it by faith, because it's a mystery. It's hard to explain the Trinity. We at Holy Trinity, there's a lot of other items in Scripture, that have helped theologians from early years to be convinced of the doctrine of the Trinity.

We are the people of Holy Trinity. We are the people of the Trinity. And how do we show that?

Well, years ago, St. Patrick, huh, was a missionary to Ireland. And he picked up a simple clover, and he said, the three leaves are each one distinct, but it's a plant.

One plant, three leaves, and explained the Trinity through that. When I was a young boy, I went camping, and learned about the Trinity, because that's the way we identified it, poison ivy.

You know? It had three leaves, and one plant, and you better stay away from it. Poison ivy. What do we do today?

Today, actually today, I want to explain. Today, if you're looking at the calendar, it's supposed to be white, because it's a feast day. But for us, it's a special feast day, because it's our namesake.

This is the Holy Trinity. So we believe in the Trinity. The Trinity is who we are. And we believe solemnly in that first article of faith.

We are the people of the Trinity. Right? Right. Last week, Father talked about, or Bishop talked about, all the stages of his life in the church.

So don't be afraid to be a little charismatic. Okay? Or at least evangelical. Speak up. So today, we use the Trinity knot.

That's why we didn't use white for the feast, because throughout the season of green, ordinary time, we call it after Trinity Sunday until Advent almost.

So we're going to be a long time looking at this Trinity knot. But it's one knot. Huh? One knot. God. Three sections.

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Let me say something. The Father is not the Son, but He is God.

The Father is not the Holy Spirit, but He is God. The same thing with the Son. The Son is God.

He's not the Father or the Holy Spirit, but He is God. And the same thing with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit's not the Father, and the Holy Spirit's not the Son, but the Holy Spirit is God.

And Claire's just in time. Hi, Claire. So that's how we represent the Trinity here at Holy Trinity. And every time we see this, and every time we come into this parish, you know, you'll see this, and if you look at our sign very carefully, it says the Anglican Church of the Holy Trinity or it says Holy Trinity Church, but behind it, lightly, is our Trinity knot in blue.

Because we are the people of the Trinity. right? Yeah, good. Thank you. We're not sleeping yet. The people of the Trinity.

Some non-Christians would use a mathematical formula, and I don't want to say which one specifically does. But they say one plus one plus one is three. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Trinity are three different persons.

But you can make math equations work any way you want. So I say one times one times one is one. Right?

One times one times one is one. So for us Trinitarian people, we use multiplication, not addition. one times one and like I said earlier, if you're a Christian, you believe in the Trinity.

How many here believe in the Trinity? Right. If you don't believe in the Trinity, you can't call yourselves a Christian. Now, I talked about poison ivy, and I talked about St.

Patrick's clover that we all knew about for a hundred years, right? But there's modern versions of that clover and that poison ivy.

And Claire Ryder is going to come up and show you the modern version of the poison ivy and the clover.

And it's a magic trick, right? Now speak up. Say hi. Hi. Okay. Here's Claire's magic trick. Claire, what's this?

An egg. This is an egg. See it? It's an egg. Just an egg. Right? Right? Now, I'm going to crack this egg carefully.

Somebody said, oh God. Okay. What's this? The shell. The shell. What kind of shell? Egg shell.

Egg shell. This is an egg shell. Right? So it's still part of the egg, but it's a piece of the egg. It's not the whole egg, but it's the egg shell.

What's this yellow thing in there? The dark. That's a yolk. A yolk. What kind of yolk?

Egg yolk. So it's still part of the egg, but it's separate, isn't it? Right? Just like Jesus is part of God, but he's separate from God.

Right? He's separate. He's not the Holy Spirit. He's not the Father, but he's the yolk. Right? What's the clear, the dark, yellow stuff in there?

The white of the egg. Right? It's still part of the egg, isn't it? Right? But it's separate. It's got its distinct parts. Right? The yellow, the white, and the shell.

all distinct, like the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But all three together are God.

You're right. And all three of these together are what? The egg. The egg. See? Let's give a hand to Claire. Thank you. Great job.

Great job, Claire. Thank you for your help. Thank you. Claire's my assistant preacher. here. So that's what we need to remember, that there's many ways to remember the Trinity.

And I always thank Claire for her help. Now I can't go away without talking about the Gospel today, because it's one of my favorites. Oh, I have several favorites, and for some reason, I preached on one of my favorites at Christmas time.

And I'm preaching at one of my favorites now, at Trinity Sunday. And I always say thank you to the bishop for scheduling me these Sundays, and I don't think it's the bishop.

I think it's the Holy Spirit that schedules these Sundays. So, on John 3, 16, for a while we'd see him on big signs at football games and baseball games and basketball games.

God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. Right? I like to personally take scriptures that are meaningful like that to me and make them my own in prayer.

God so loved me. Me.

Now, I accept that he loved all of us. But it helps that I know that he loved me so much that he sent his only son into the world.

that if I believe in him, I should not perish but have eternal life.

I do that with a lot of prayers that we pray in together. We pray for each other in church here. When I'm home praying myself, I think of them. You know, we pray the prayer of forgiveness here.

we confess to almighty God. Take that some time home alone and pray it to yourself.

Pray it between you and God. I confess to almighty God that I have sinned. There are so many of those prayers and there's scriptures in the Bible that we can pray and make them personal, make them our own.

When we're together, we pray them for all of us. But when we're alone, they become personal between me and God. And this is one of those for me.

It's a beautiful prayer that John put in scripture for us. That we can pray it together. God so loves us that he sent his son.

But God so loved me. God would love me that much that he would send his son to die for me. It's hard to believe sometimes.

And we pray this in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. would you please in your prayer books turn to page 769.

769. On most Sundays, but on Trinity Sunday, we're given the opportunity to