What’s it all mean? God, our God, the one we worship with all our being and are so grateful to for everything he gives us and who is the creator of this whole universe, is the great Three-in-One. What’s that mean? Who can explain how God can be the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit?
If you have the rock solid answer that we can all understand come on up here and explain it. I’ll be the first one to tell you that it is a mystery to me. The more I read, the more I study, the more I realize that even the great theologians of the world can’t explain it any better than you and I can. Oh sure they can use some big words to try to get us all to understand the Trinity but the bottom line is it’s all a mystery.
God just is. He created everything around us, everything. There isn’t one thing that God didn’t make. Not one of us can take credit for even one atom of anything. Oh some may think they did it all by themselves but they’re just fooling themselves.
When I walk around in this marvelous world, especially in the spring, I realize how wonderful it all is. And the miracle is that in this part of the world everything dies in the fall and winter and miraculously comes back to life in the spring. And we are amazed every year that it happens. The same birds come back to find night crawlers in my yard, the same hostas come up in the same place every year, even when they get hammered into the ground by hail or chewed on by rabbits. They come back to life every year.
How can I not believe in God when all around I see so many beautiful and wondrous things? And each one is excitingly unique; no two are the same, like snowflakes for example. The intricacy of each cell, each atom, is beyond our comprehension.
Every time I think back to when Linda and I first discovered that we were going to be parents I am amazed at how God takes two people and from the love they have for each creates a new life. And when I think about the odds of it happening at all, well it’s all just a miracle. Each new life that we are blessed with is just a miracle. I don’t believe there’s any other way to explain it.
The only explanation I have is someone greater than all of us is responsible for the whole thing. I’ve seen some of the things I’ve tried to create and they don’t begin to compare to what God can do.
So what does it all mean? It means that God is in control and when he wants us to know everything he will reveal it to us. Until then I am just going to believe in the mystery that is God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
I think that the most important thing for us is to remember what Jesus told his disciples just before he ascended into heaven. The Great Commission he gave to them and us was that all the authority he had in heaven and earth that had been given to him he was giving to his disciples was to make more disciples of all the nations baptizing and teaching them in the name of the Trinity. And to not worry he would always be with them and us, to the very end of time.
So I’m not going to concern myself too much about who God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is or worry too much about trying to explain it. What I am going to do is to do my best to make disciples wherever God plants me. And in order to make disciples that means I have to teach, and in order to teach that means I have to study. What am I going to study? I’m going to read the Word and pray that the Holy Spirit grants me the wisdom and understanding necessary to teach all God’s children.
While I’m about it, I’m going to walk about, or maybe ride about, in this great place God has created. I’m going to enjoy visiting and talking with these little ones who are the best part of God’s creation, ever.
Today we are going to baptize one of God’s miracles. What’s it all mean? It means that John and Vickie and all of us gathered here today accept the responsibility, in fact we promise, to guide and nurture this young person by our words and our life’s examples, with love and prayer, encouraging them to know Jesus, the Son of God the Father through the working of the Holy Spirit. I believe it means that God blesses this new life and with Jesus and the Holy Spirit and the body of Christ, the church, train Matthew to be one of his disciples. Just how he accomplishes all of this is the mystery.
What’s it all mean? It means that God loves us so much that he put us here on this little spinning piece of space dust with just the right conditions to support life. And it’s up to us to take care of it and trust in Him to provide for our needs. Do we need to know how the Trinity fits into all of it? Do we really need to know the why’s, what’s, and wherefores of it? No, I don’t think so. I think we just have to know that God is and trust in his love and providence for us.
I don’t think I have many answers to the question of the Trinity but I do believe that there is a God and he sent his Son to show us what God was like, and before he ascended told us he would send an Advocate, a Counselor, to be with us, to pray for us, to help us understand and remember everything Jesus taught his disciples. I believe that God cares for all of his children and it’s through the body of Christ that God’s love is to be shared. That I believe.
Friends, God loves all of you and so do I. Amen.
