..Work continues on repairs, improvements and painting the church and parish house. Thank you to all who are funding this construction with your donations. It is not too late to make a contribution to our 2019 Capital Campaign. The work will help keep Christ Episcopal active in
..BIG EVENT! . . . Ordination of Garrett Boyte: 11:00 am, Saturday, June 22, 2019, St. Mark’s Cathedral,
..Father Riley will lead us in Holy Eucharist June 23 and Jane Barnett will lead us in Morning Prayer on June 30. 10am services as usual.
TRINITY SUNDAY - C - 19 JOHN 16. 12-15
“Jesus said to his disciples, ‘I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth…he will declare to you the things that are to come."
Last week the Church celebrated the 1,976th anniversary of the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. On that day the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples in dramatic fashion empowering them with a variety of gifts needed to carry out the mission and ministry Jesus had entrusted to them.
Today, however, our gospel reading takes us backwards to the upper room where Jesus is delivering his final discourse. Here he promises that the Spirit will come, guide his disciples into all truth, and reveal to them the things that are to come.
Jesus’ disciples are about to be plunged into a short, sharp and intensely powerful period that will be like a moment of birth. Jesus will be taken away. His death and resurrection are the necessary events that will lead to his ‘going to the Father’ and his ‘sending of the Spirit.’
These are extraordinary events, the like of which the world has never seen before. The disciples can hardly prepare properly for them; but Jesus wants to warn them anyway. They are not merely strange, shocking and unique. They are visible signs that God’s new world is really coming to birth.
Although they did not understand them then, they would. The Spirit, as Jesus promised, would guide them, nudging their minds and imagination into ways of knowing, and things to know, that Jesus has already said to them.
The effect the Holy Spirit has in us is represented in the words of today’s gospel. These words of Jesus contain a general truth; they teach us the will of the giver, and the nature and condition of the gift.
For sense our finite human minds cannot grasp the Father and the Son, our faith, which has difficulty in conceiving the Incarnation, is enlightened by the gift of the Holy Spirit. We receive the Holy Spirit, then, for the sake of knowledge.
Just as the Spirit is mystery, so is the doctrine of the Holy Trinity we celebrate today. It is the central dogma of Christian theology that unites the majority of the world’s Christians, namely, the Orthodox, Roman Catholics, and Anglicans in the confession of one faith - the catholic faith.
By the same token, it is a doctrine that separates us not only from others who profess themselves as Christians, but also from the world’s other major religions, namely Islam, and Judaism.
The word trinity refers to the three persons of God and was first used by Saint Theophilous of
In the Old Testament, for example, it is implicit in the visit of the three men who suddenly appeared to Abram and announced that his wife Sara would bear a son in her old age. In the New Testament it is explicit in Jesus’ command to his disciples that they are to make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, that is, with a profession of the creator, the only begotten and the gift.
When we recite the Church’s Creed, we say we believe in the co-equality and co-eternity of the 3 in one, Father Son, and Holy Spirit. This doctrine is held to be a mystery in the strict sense of the word, in that it can neither be known by unaided human reason apart from revelation, nor cogently demonstrated by reason after it has been revealed.
Over the years, I was privileged to have been able to teach and present adults and children to the Bishop for Confirmation. One of the classes I have striven to teach was on the Creeds of the Church, both the Apostle’s and the Nicene, which contain the major doctrines of the Church including that of the Holy Trinity.
The human finite mind, however, is incapable on its own to grasp or to understand the mystery that is God. The words of the ancient Creed express our belief as best we can. I cannot explain it any better. I simply believe that God is creator of heaven and earth and of all that is seen and unseen.
I believe that He sent his only Son, Jesus Christ, to redeem us from sin and death and through Christ’ life, death, and resurrection the way to eternal life has been opened to us. I believe that the third person of the Holy Trinity, the Spirit of God, has been given to the Church as a gift for those who believe as Jesus promised.
The gift of the Spirit has been given to us through the sacrament of Holy baptism for the explicit purpose of guiding us into all truth by revealing the true nature of God, and empowering us, as Christ’ modern day disciples, to continue the mission and ministry that He has entrusted to us.
It is a mission and ministry which have been passed down through the ages from the time of the Apostles. A mission that is nothing less than that of bringing God to man and man to God. It is a mission that is impossible to fulfill without our being aided by the gift of the Holy Spirit.
I do not try to unravel the mystery of the Holy Trinity. No one can. I simply believe. The gift of faith bridges the limits of my human intellect and enables me to stand and profess my belief in the words of the ancient creed.
The Spirit teaches me to know that what I am saying is true.
Our understanding of God begins with faith and ends with faith. Faith is a gift of Love that comes from God. Love is the key to understanding God. It is Divine Love that unites the community of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and it is this same love that Jesus prayed we would have for one another, that unites us in our belief of the one and eternal glory of God.
This love, the love the Father has for the Son and the Son has for all who believe in him, as
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