“God in three persons
Blessed Trinity.”
You may have noticed that the Lutheran Church has backed off the
doctrine of the Trinity. Ordinary time, which follows the church's
major festivals culminating in Pentecost is now expressed as Sundays
in Pentecost, not Trinity. Easter occurring so early this year
ordinary time stretches out about as far as possible.
Christians together with Jews and Muslims profess belief in
Monotheism. There is no god but Allah or Jahweh—The great I am that
I am. If there is but one god then what about god the son and god the
holy spook. The one commonality in all religions is the impossibility
of mere mortals fully comprehending the divine. Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit are but three means of conceiving, attempting to understand
the divine. Three aspects of this single god.
The incarnation we celebrated at Christmas was God made man. The
significance of this event was not in what it did for God but the
message it brought for man. The Kingdom of God is not a future pie in
sky reward for good behaviour but the Peace of God present in the
here and now. Eternal life begins now and our unity in the Spirit is
celebrated in Holy Communion. You may note that the Lord's Prayer has
been moved from its former place following the Prayer of the Church
to immediately following the Words of Institution. Lutherans
acknowledge two sacraments. That of Baptism in which God claims us as
his children in the Spirit and Holy Communion in which we join in
communion with God and the community of saints in a common meal.
Jesus as wholly human and wholly divine allowed his physical body to
be put to death but his Spirit has existed always. The aspect of God
Jesus represents has existed from eternity, even before Creation
itself. His intervention in historical time added nothing to God's
powers. God needed no scapegoat to redeem the sins of man. God has
always been willing to forgive and renew a right spirit within us as
the Psalmist says, (Psalm 51).
This is the Gospel, the Good News, the Epiphany that Jesus brought at
Christmas. John attempts in poetic metaphor to express this Word in
John 1.
We can't earn what is freely given by Good Works however the
willingness to repent and access God's Grace is a gift of the Holy
Spirit. No one can prove the existence of God but if we accept it in
the innocence of a little child we become one with him. The paradox
here is that good works cannot earn Grace but having accepted God's
forgiveness of sins we are freed from the weight of sin and guilt to
respond in love and that response will result in Good Deeds.
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