A sermon for Trinity Sunday 2024, preached by the Reverend Dr Trevor Jamison at Saint Columba’s United Reformed Church, North Shields
Watch the whole service on YouTube
Nicodemus ‘came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.”’ (3:2)
Well, it’s Trinity Sunday. Last Sunday was Pentecost Sunday, which focused on the coming of the Holy Spirit to the church in Jerusalem in days that followed the departure of Jesus; his ascension; his return to heaven. This Sunday – the one that comes immediately after Pentecost Sunday – is celebrated as Trinity Sunday by Christian churches all around the globe.
I say “celebrated”, but many people find it a bit of a puzzle. Prominent among such folk are worship leaders and preachers. “What is the doctrine of the Holy Spirit all about?” “How will I explain it to the congregation when I’m pretty hazy about it myself?” That’s the often the cue to deliver children’s addresses which seek to explain the Trinity in terms that anyone can understand. Ice, which when heated, becomes water, which becomes steam: God like solid, liquid and gas. Or alternatively, the shamrock: three leaves, one plant. And so on and so forth …
There are problems with such presentations. First, they don’t do justice to the God that people have encountered – God’s more than the outcome of a simple scientific experiment. God is more than the stem and leaves of a small plant, even if, since it’s a shamrock, Irishness gets equated with godliness! Worse, though, such presentations suggest that what we call the doctrine of the Trinity is a sort of puzzle, something designed to make people seek an answer.
The doctrine of the Trinity is not designed to be a puzzle. It is intended to provide an answer to a puzzle. It’s the Church’s best attempt at an explanation of our varied encounters with God who remains one God. We meet God through our encounter with the universe: the stars in heaven, the mighty mountains, the deep seas, and yes, the intricate design of little flowers. Yet not only do we meet God everywhere we also meet God in one unique individual, Jesus Christ – in the story of his birth and life, his teaching about God’s kingdom and how to live on earth. Then also, despite the fact that Jesus is no longer here on earth we feel his presence with us today; ‘that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God,’ as the Apostle Paul puts it. (8:16)
How can all of that be? How can we meet God in nature, meet God in Jesus, and still feel God’s presence here and now, and all at the same time? Consider what happened when Nicodemus ‘came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.”’ (3:2)
- You – Jesus
- From God – the God of heaven, the creator and sustainer of existence
- The presence of God – with Jesus, and with us; or to quote Paul once again, ‘For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.’ (8:14) The same God who was present in Jesus is present with us today.
In the Bible the phrase, “Holy Trinity” does not exist. That’s something that has arisen as a description of something that is almost there; hinted at in the text; visible to those who have eyes to see it. Take for example the verse with which our service opened this morning, one that comes from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians: ‘Through Christ we have access to the Father in the one Spirit.’ (Ephesians 2:18) – Christ, Father, Spirit.
Or to go back that meeting between Nicodemus and Jesus. It’s one that begins with reference to God (3:2). It also ends with reference to God, and God’s salvation of the world (3:16, 17). Nicodemus’s opening words are, ‘Rabbi we know that you are a teacher who has come from God.’ (3:2) Jesus has come from God, has come from heaven. Hence his answer to Nicodemus, which accommodates itself to the human tendency to locate heaven in a place above: ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.’ (3:3)
Of course, that is sometimes translated as ‘born again’, but today, thinking about God in Trinity, the equally good translation, ‘born from above’ seems more appropriate. And Jesus goes on to emphasise his point: ‘no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. … [so] don’t be astonished that I said on to you, “you must be born from above”.’ (3:5, 7)
Jesus has come from God. As Jesus says, or as John the Gospel writer comments, ‘No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.’ (3:13) When you want to encounter God, meet Jesus.
But Jesus is no longer here on earth to be met with, at least not bodily. The one who came from heaven has returned, the one who descended to earth has gone back to heaven. But God has not left us bereft of God’s presence. God has gifted us God’s own Spirit which we experience as the Spirit of Jesus. And one of the ways that you know it’s the Spirit of Jesus is that it’s not predictable! To quote Jesus in conversation once again, ‘The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’ (3:8)
The breath, wind or Spirit of God is hard to pin down. Sometimes you encounter it in deeply personal ways, for example with a conviction that God is speaking to you through a situation or though something that has been said. Sometimes it’s a more corporate thing; we’re in a Church Meeting, for example, and things are heading in one direction, though we are not completely at ease with it. Then someone who has not said much before asks a question or offers a comment that sends the discussion off in a new direction, one which you everyone recognises as the way God intended things to be in the first place.
And this Spirit is the Jesus-Spirit, pushing us in the direction of Jesus-like ways and directions, which is also God’s ways and directions: ‘for all who are led by the Spirit are children of God,’ as Paul writes. (8:14)
Nicodemus knew that Jesus was from God, but could not figure out how that worked, and Jesus’s comments left him bewildered. We are not smarter than Nicodemus. He was leader and teacher of Israel after all (3:1, 10). We simply have the advantage of coming along later. We are the beneficiaries of the thoughts and insights of others; that the God who has come to us is the Creator/Parent/Father, made known by God’s self as our Saviour, Teacher, Friend, experienced today as Encourager, Spirit, and Advocate; one God, three persons, worthy of our love, loyalty and worship; one God in three Person, Holy Trinity. Amen.