6-15-25                 Jn 16:12-15

[Jesus said,] 12 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 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. 14 He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15 All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

Grace to you from the three who are One, our God in communion with- in God’s self and with us, His beloved children.

At this time, the week after Pentecost, the church has set apart a holy day to emphasize and celebrate the mystery and wonder of our God. God reveals God’s self to us as a Trinity completely unified as One. For the most part we concentrate on Jesus, known to us as the Son of God and the Son of Man. It is as we proclaim by means of the Nicene Creed: We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father,… true God from true God, of one being with the Father. We acknowledge this Jesus also as the Son of Man, a title that Jesus often utilized when speaking of himself. This title reminds us that Jesus cherished his flesh and blood connection to us. In the Creed we also say: For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven; by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the virgin Mary and was made man. It is this Jesus who was crucified for our sake, suffered that very human inevitability of death but on the third day, rose just as Scripture had anticipated and as Jesus himself had claimed he would. Being human had made Jesus most closely connected to us and most comprehensible even though his love for us is greater than we can replicate.

In the church, we retell the stories of his demonstrations of power in his interaction with those special 12 followers and with the crowds who gathered to be near him. Jesus made known his concern for the needs of those people by feeding them and healing the sick. He identified with their plight, praying to the Father to respond to their needs and to his own, as a fellow human being. He taught them, to make it known that obedience to the will of God was the means for establishing a better world and a content and joyful community. Within Jesus’ witness we discover most directly the God his life makes known.

The creed relates to us this three person God, as the church fathers came to describe him. The Father God has the major role in the creation as we thus profess it: Maker of Heaven and Earth, of all that is, seen and unseen. John reminds us that this expansive creation task was a mutual and unified effort on God’s part. He wrote: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life. (Jn 1:1-4a) And Genesis tells us: the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while the spirit of God swept over the face of the waters. (Gen 1:2) So in Scripture we have it made known that God who is three, works together as one. Still, we recognize that God the Father was directing the action, like the engineer behind the entire project, who was given support by the whole team.

Then we come to that third person of the Trinity – that Holy Spirit, who was given special attention last week in the festival of Pentecost. Promised by Jesus as the Advocate who will provide the gifts that unite believers enabling us to follow in the way of Jesus, passing along the love that Jesus brought and the salvation He won for us. The Spirit is the constant companion made available to us, to guide us into the truth. John records Jesus’ explanation that he still had many things to say to them but they couldn’t bear them all yet – for they weren’t ready to make use of all the information and knowledge. As their lives and experience unfolded, as those messages became needed and those lessons could be utilized, the Spirit would become the means of focusing the lens so they could see, hear and understand then, what Jesus had to say to them. It is the same for us. When we are ready and when we are receptive to those truths, the Spirit is eager to open our minds and hearts to provide that wisdom and understanding to us.

All three persons of the one God have the same message, the same will and purpose, as God deals with and through His creation, even as variations exist in how each brings that reality into being. We may struggle with the concept of trinity. After all we like to have a concrete, step by step process laid out that explains the how and way of things. Yet, it is faith that will be the only real means to our acceptance.

God is not the only reality we live with, which we struggle to comprehend. Take the notion of time. Past, present, and future. Notice that time has a trinitarian framework. Each part of time is distinct. Still each part of time is interrelated to each of the other parts. The past influences the present and both make an impact on the future. The present receives its challenge from future needs while trying to cope with the results of the past. The future flows from the past by means of the present to arrive at its place in the scheme of time. Time could be a symbol for the Trinity of God. Yet, like other illustrations we use for Trinity, i.e.  water-ice- condensation or the apple with its peeling, fruit and seeds, the metaphor will break down, being inadequate to hold the complete meaning of who God is. It is like what happened to the guest preacher, Pastor Charlie, when he shared his powerful sermon. After a moment to pause and let it soak in, the song leader said: “Thank you for your inspiring message on the trinity, Pastor. Now let us all stand and sing on of our favorites, ‘We’ll understand it better in the bye and bye.’ ”

It is only by faith that we can accept the truth of such a unified relationship, of this community force, that is our God. In the beginning, God the Father established the design and purpose at creation, which would magnify God’s glory and bring about a universal connection and dependence, throughout the entire cosmos. We have yet to delve into all those interwoven relations which exist, even just upon this earth, say nothing about the whole universe. Jesus, the Son, came into a real present, to live in that particular time continuum as all humans must. It was by his sacrifice of love that we can anticipate an eternity with God. And it is the Spirit who opens the future so we can enter into it, since tomorrow is a brand-new day, allowing us to be freed from our past mistakes and sin, as we latch onto the forgiveness provided for us. We are encouraged to walk with the support of that Advocate, joining with others, trusting God to work in us to do God’s will. 

As St Paul wrote to the Romans and through them to us: 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. (All) because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, given to us. (Rom 5:1,2,5). So as our Creed assures us: We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.    This truth is ours by means of this our God who was, who is, and who is to come – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.