- Psalmody: Liturgical Text; Tobit 12:6b, d; Prayer of Azariah 1:32a, 33; 1:3a, 32b;Tobit 12:6d; Tobit 12:6b–d
- Lection: Isaiah 6:1–7; Romans 11:33–36; John 3:1–17
In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
We have confessed our merciful Lord today in two of the Church’s three magnificent, solid, entirely true ecumenical creeds. The Athanasian Creed, the least repeated among us likely because of its length, is the necessary result of the early Church battling heresy as it tried to creep in. There were those numbered among us who denied the divinity of Christ, who said that He wasn’t true God, existing from eternity past. Therefore, the Church, the true Body of Christ, the Eternal One, stood firm in the Scriptures, made the good confession, and those teaching the heresy were condemned by their error of the denial of the true God and true man, Jesus Christ. Any corruption of the Truth about God and Who He is can never be tolerated, lest the souls of those He loves come to be at risk of perishing eternally by being led astray. We are to speak the truth in love, not condone sin and error and call that “love”. Which is why there will always be division in the Church, division that is necessary, because there will always be sinners within and sinners without attempting to satisfy desires and impose personal wills, interpretations, agendas, and false teachings upon her pure doctrine as given in the Holy Scriptures. Errors must be judged and called what they are, lest they fester and the infection overtake truth in the hearts of the Elect, leading to the damnable disease of unbelief, as all would be to the devil’s delight.
Fear not that we have somehow ventured down a path of error by confessing that we, as Lutherans, hold the “catholic faith”. If you heard that to mean “Roman Catholic”, “Ukranian Catholic” or even “Byzantine Catholic”, then you have misunderstood, mainly because of how the word is modernly used. But modernity is neither our God nor commander of our language. The word “catholic”, as it is used in our creeds throughout history, does not refer to any particular church body or denomination as man has formed and labeled them. The original from which we get our word catholic simply means “universal”. In this proper sense, Lutherans are true catholics as we belong to the one true universal faith that has been given to all who have been baptized into the Body of Christ, having the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit placed upon us in the washing of regeneration and renewal in those blessed waters combined with God’s Word. Whoever desires to be saved must, above all, hold the catholic faith. We must hold to it, above all threats or destructions to our way of life, above all lures of pleasures and covetousness, above all securities and hope that we seek outside of God alone, above all sufferings that are sure to come. We must hold to the sound truth of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic faith found in the universal Church of God as He has formed her through the cleansing blood of His Son and the indwelling of His Spirit.
We must hold to what the Lord requires of us and desires us to understand about Him, but do not be afraid for this belief in Him, the blessed Holy Trinity, is not impossible though He is infinite. The limits of our minds do not doom us but properly exalt Him, because the faith and ability to believe in the salvation He brings is a gift that He Himself gives to us in the Father’s love, through the sacrifice of the Son, by the working of the Spirit. Behold the Holy Trinity: the Father, Son, and Spirit working salvation for and in us poor, miserable sinners!
This is the catholic faith, that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, a reality that no earthly comparison can explain yet all earthbound minds are wise to praise and adore. Do not try to understand the Holy Trinity as an egg, or to compare the Almighty to water in different forms. Nothing in all limited, finite Creation can give adequate explanation to how the Trinity is. But that’s okay and is actually good, because weneed Him to transcend what we see in this fallen creation. We need Him to be more and indeed He is infinitely more. Is it not glorious to be loved by and belong to such a One as this!
The Lord doesn’t call upon you to understand or articulate how it is that there are three persons in one God, coequal, co-eternal, etc., etc., but only that you believe that it is true and that this Almighty Creator and lover of your soul has not come into the world to condemn it, but to save you from the destruction of your sins. Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! With St. Paul, those who belong to God praise Him in His majesty, for there is no other like Him. We give Him thanks that though He is mighty beyond our understanding, He still loves us, and that He came down from heaven and became a Man so that we would not perish in our sin. His trinitarian mystery is something no created mind will ever be able to fully understand, indeed, yet He does not require the heart to do so, but simply to believe Him, because He has made Himself known in the language of finite minds and hearts to the degree that little children come to know and love Him well.
The heavenly truth by which He calls you and that your mind can grasp is that “No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” Here’s what you are to believe. Here is the catholic faith. Here is your salvation accomplished for you by the Almighty Holy Trinity: God (the Father, the first person of the Trinity) loved the world in this way, that He gave His only begotten Son (also God, the second person of the Trinity incarnate), that whoever believes in Him (believes by the working of God the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity), that whoever believes in this Jesus, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and true Man, born of the Virgin Mary, will not perish but have everlasting life. Lay hold of that with all that you are and from there, from that understandable, simple, yet priceless truth, everything else you learn about the Trinity and how He is tending to you in this life will become your joy as you discover and learn more and more how to fear, how to love, and how to trust in Him above all things.
Is it an easy, comfortable process to be sanctified by God, to be purged of the impurities that cling to us day and night? Not in this life. But that is His love at work in us. We still battle sin, but with His help and His unending forgiveness. Will our faith ever be perfect? Not in this life, but faith of the tiniest of sizes, faith that clings not to itself or to the things of this world, but to the Savior seated at the right hand of the Father in the unity of the Spirit, that little bit of faith is enough to move mountains, is enough through which the One in Whom it is placed can and will deliver unto the eternity He holds.
Have faith in Him Who is the One faithful to you. He in Whom you trust is more than all of your intellectual wrestlings about the Trinity, than all your doubts, than all your struggles, than all your sins. In the remaining life He has in store for you, the Almighty Three-in-One and One-in-Three will sustain you unto life everlasting, because He has seen to it that you belong to Him. This you know, because He has died for you, risen again, ascended, and by His means has put His Name upon you, for it was God Who baptized you in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, the blessed Trinity, the blessed Unity, the one true God Who saves you. For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen.
In ✠ Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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