God in 3D – June 15, 2025, Trinity Sunday
Isaiah 61:1-4, 10-11, John 14:15-27
June 15, 2025
Today is Trinity Sunday. It’s the day we recognize and celebrate that we worship God in Three Persons. We worship God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit – The Holy Trinity.
However, as I’ve said before, “Trinity” is a word that is not found anywhere in the Bible! Which is pretty amazing, for a word that’s become so important to us! But even though the word is not found in the Bible, there are many references to it throughout the New Testament. And I think our reading for today is one of the best examples. I also think it’s the first time Jesus tells his disciples about it.
Think about that! We’re with them in the Upper Room. And this is back on Maundy Thursday. Here, Jesus is preparing his disciples for the time ahead, when he would be gone, and things would not be so easy for them. And I think they knew that. They knew things were coming to a head. They were aware of the adversaries of Jesus, and they were afraid something terrible might soon happen.
So, according to John, Jesus is telling them that he was one with God, and then that God would be sending “another comforter” – the Holy Spirit. Of course we’ve talked about that event the last couple of weeks.
But, can we imagine what these disciples were thinking as they listened to Jesus that night? As I’ve often said, they were “Good Jewish Boys.” And as such, they were monotheists. That is, they believed in one God. (I believe Judaism was the first monotheistic religion!) So they all knew the familiar “Shema Israel” passage from Deuteronomy. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.”
You know that passage, too. And if you have Jewish friends, you might remember seeing the little mezuzah on their front doorposts. The “Shema Israel” is the scripture that’s represented there. If you see one, look for the little Hebrew letter “Sheen” – it looks like a double-u. Part of that passage says that you should remember the commands of God, that “you shall bind them as a sign upon your hands, and you shall write them on the doorposts of your house…” (Deuteronomy 6) That’s why they’re there!
So, as good Jewish boys, they knew that passage. They were taught from their childhood that “the Lord your God is one Lord.” They knew the other nations around them were polytheistic. They had many gods. So for these guys to hear Jesus say that he was “one with God,” and that the Father, would send “another comforter,” – the Holy Spirit, would at the very least, have been confusing to them! “What was he saying to them?” And again, Jesus didn’t say the word “Trinity” here, but of course, he was telling them about it. And it’s hard to imagine what they were thinking!
Well, People in our world, and people down through the age of the Church, have had a hard time with this. The Trinity, the idea of one God in three persons, is not easy to “wrap our heads around.” In fact, over the years, many in the church have called it a “mystery.” That is, it’s something we cannot fully comprehend. And if you think about it, there’s some truth to that.
We worship one God, in three persons. And the Church has tried, over the years, to give a number of different examples of things to try to illustrate this – to try to help our understanding. For instance, they’ve used the clover. The clover has three leaves, but it’s one clover. They’ve used the three forms of water – H2O – as an illustration. They could have used many substances, for that matter. But water is the substance that we know the best, and the one that we most often experience in the three “states” of matter. We know it as a solid, a liquid, and a gas. It’s ice, water, and steam. But it’s all water. It’s all H20! These kinds of things help in our understanding of the Trinity, but they don’t explain it fully.
I’m using another example today. I’ve called this sermon “God in 3D,” meaning, of course, the three dimensions of length, width, and depth. Those are the three dimensions we most commonly think of. Although some, like Einstein, have suggested that there’s a fourth dimension, which is “time.” He brought that idea into his theory of Relativity. And of course in the “Age of Aquarius,” we all began to believe there was indeed a Fifth Dimension!
Well, I like “3D” as an example because the three dimensions add to the “realness” of things. 3D things have shape and depth and mass. They look real to us – as opposed to a picture, which we experience in two dimensions. Artists have been trying for years to make the two dimensions look like three dimensions. And they’ve used different techniques with shading and perspective. And the often achieve that three dimensional appearance.
But in the real world, we naturally see in three dimensions. That’s because the good Lord gave us two eyes, and so we see two slightly different views of everything. And our brains interpret that as depth. We do it all the time – without thinking of it! And if you want to see those two slightly different views, hold two fingers together close to your eyes and look across the room. You’ll see that little extra finger between them! That’s because of the two slightly different angles of viewing.
Do you remember when 3D movies came out? They gave you those 3D glasses, and that made things came out of the screen at you! And everybody in the theater would lurch backwards at the same time! In the 1960’s we had little devices called “View Masters.” Do you remember them? They were cool! You put in the round things with the two slightly different views of the same thing and you saw it in three dimensions! There was a little lever that switched to the next picture. I don’t think we knew how cool that was in those days! Now we have 3D televisions, and virtual reality!
So we worship God in three persons – three dimensions. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And I believe that makes him become more “real” to us, too. But all this is to say that the Trinity, God in three persons – does not mean we worship three gods. As someone once said, we are not tritheists! But it’s awfully hard not to think that way sometimes. Especially since the second “person” of the Trinity, God the Son, was – for a time – separate from God the Father. Jesus said many times that he and the Father were one. But he prayed to him on many occasions like they were two separate beings.
That’s different than just saying God took the form of Jesus – that Jesus was God the Father walking around on earth. No, they were separate for around 30 years. And that is a mystery. And I don’t propose to explain that completely today. (Or probably ever!) But I have to acknowledge that those two “persons” of the Trinity were separate for a time.
Now, the Good thing about all of this is that this is the way God has chosen to be in relationship with us – in actual contact with us. We worship God the Father – he’s our creator. We worship God the Son, who walked the earth and experienced life as a human being, and who redeemed us. And now there’s the Holy Spirit, “Another comforter,” as Jesus said. And that’s a great description. because, yes, the spirit does guide us and empower us, but a big thing he does is comfort us! God wanted to be immediately present in all our lives! Especially in those times of greatest need! The disciples would soon need that, in spades! So God is all of those things, all of those persons, all at the same time. And that deepens the sense of mystery, doesn’t it?
That’s what we celebrate today, “The Holy Trinity – God in 3D!” But as we do, remember Deuteronomy – a book that was all about “remembering.” Remember the words, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.” Yes, we do worship a “triune” God. But the three “persons” of the Trinity are all forms of the same, one God. And know for certain today that our one God comes into our lives and touches us as our creator, our redeemer, and our sustainer.
Prayer
Eternal God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – help us to sure of all those things. Help us to know you are all powerful, and that you created us. Help us to know of your great love for us, through which you have redeemed us. And help us to be aware of your sustaining Spirit in our midst, and in our lives. For we pray, as our savior taught us, in his name, Amen.