Festival of the Holy Trinity (B) — Isaiah 6:1–8
The rabbis tell us that God in scripture is like a beautiful, precious diamond, cut expertly by the finest jeweler, with seventy faces. You could look into one and find yourself lost in it, staring forever and trying desperately to take in all of its beauty. But if you do, you’ll only get to see a tiny slice of it. You’ll miss the view through all the other faces. You can never quite see it all.
In our Old Testament reading today, the prophet Isaiah is transported into God’s palace in heaven, where he gets a direct view of God sitting on his throne, surrounded by his heavenly court. It’s one of the most clear images of God we have. So much so that in our worship, when we draw closest to God at Holy Communion, we sing these words, crying out with the angels, the burning seraphim, to proclaim God’s holy, holy, holy glory with such power that the foundations of the earth shake.
But the description leaves something to be desired. As Isaiah stands in the heavenly temple, he sees God on a “high and lofty” throne. So high above that God is difficult to see. If he could see. But he can’t. His view is obstructed. Just the hem of God’s robe fills Isaiah’s entire field of vision. The greatness, the beauty, the magnificence of God’s presence is too much to take in.
Isaiah is overwhelmed, and he suddenly becomes too aware of himself. “I’m only human,” he proclaims. I’m not worthy to be here in general. But beyond that, I’m unclean, my word and deeds, and I come from a people of unclean lips. Isaiah has just given us five chapters of condemnation for the unfair, unjust practices of his nation. In light of that, how can he possibly stand before the fullness of God? There’s no way this one, imperfect person can see it all.
God is so vast that we can’t understand it. That’s the problem with this Trinity Sunday, this piece of Christian doctrine. It’s too difficult to understand. We say that God is three, but there’s still only one God. The math doesn’t work out.
There have been plenty of ways that we’ve tried to deal with this problem over the centuries. In the earliest days of the Church, lots of views were offered, and then labeled heresy, because they didn’t quite work.
Arianism said that since there was only one God, Jesus must have been God’s creation. So our creed says instead that Jesus is “true God from true God, begotten, not made.”
The Monophysites said the opposite; Jesus was God, so he couldn’t have been human. So our creed tells us that he “became incarnate of the Holy Spirit and of the virgin Mary, and was truly human.”
Patripassians believed that the Father and the Son are both divine because they’re the same. Which means the Father suffered on the cross. So our creed says Jesus is “of one being with the Father,” but also is the “only begotten Son of God.” Not the same.
The Pneumatomachians said the Holy Spirit was a creation of God. But our creed says that the Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son,” proceeds, not made.
And today, the East and West parts of the Church still fight over whether the words “and the Son” belong in there or not, which is why they’re marked as optional in our book.
Nearly everything we say when we profess our faith, is intended to show how what we believe differs from old misconceptions. That’s especially true with the Athanasian Creed, which we’ll use in abbreviated form today. It’s easier to say what the Trinity is NOT, than to say what it IS.
In more recent years, the Church has been able to reach for newer, richer imagery. I’m think we should keep the old language; words like “Father” and “Son” are problematic—too male, too human, even hurtful to some. But they’re words Jesus used, and they’ve worked for two thousand years. But it’s helpful to add new images alongside them.
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One new way of naming the Trinity is, “Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier.” It seems like it fits. God the Father is the creator, before the beginning of time, shaping all things. God the Son is the redeemer, making death always lead to resurrection. God the Spirit is the sanctifier, urging all things toward the beauty and love for which they were made. A perfect description.
Except that it, too, is an old heresy called Modalism. Because the Father created by speaking the Word, the Son, as the Spirit hovered over the waters. And God so loved the world that the Father gave the Son to redeem us into abundant life in the Spirit. And the Spirit draws us into the Father’s holiness, through the resurrection of the Son. All three created. All three redeem. All three sanctify. The Trinity is not about three different aspects of God, three different ways that we experience what the one God is doing. It’s more than that.
The truth is, we simply cannot explain God. The divine is bigger than anything we can conceive of. There are too many facets. There is only one God, but God is so great that the number “one” cannot contain him.
Isaiah feels so small before God’s throne. So God makes him holy, and calls him to proclaim his word. Isaiah believes he cannot possibly relate to God. But God brings him into relationship, and then uses him to build a relationship with even more people.
For all of the confusion of the Trinity, there are two things we can say with certainty. The first is that doctrines like this aren’t given to us directly. They develop over time, as people have real, lived out relationships with God. The Bible never says that God is both One and Three. But God has shown himself to generations of people that way, and that’s how we’ve come to know him. We believe it because it reflects our relationship.
And second, that relationship is really what the Trinity is about. God is love, three separate persons in love with each other in a way that makes them only one. Or, one God who is so much about love that he makes himself three so that he can be a relationship. Or, well, to use an image…
This picture is one of the most famous icons from the Russian tradition. It depicts Genesis 18, the three visitors who came to Abraham and Sarah, to tell them they’d have a child. The very beginning of the story of God’s salvation. Those three messengers, the tradition says, are the three persons of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Spirit. Even then, salvation is present in the bread and cup, the banquet Abraham laid out for his visitors, the banquet God lays out for all creation.
And look. Three people sitting at a square table. Looking at each other in love, in unbreakable union. And the fourth seat at the table is open, as they beckon you to come sit. To come, be a part of the relationship. This is what the Trinity means: God is love. And that love is not complete, God says, without you. Amen.