Sermon - Rev Judith Perry

Two weeks ago, when we celebrated the Ascension, I talked about how after his ascension Jesus comes in the Spirit to gather people into the divine presence.  

This is participation with Jesus which is the sacrificial giving and receiving of divine love which we call, in shorthand, the Trinity. 

This needs some unpacking. The Trinity is that sacrificial giving and receiving divine love. It is the holy energy which envelopes all creation. It is the ground of our being.  

We Christians interpret this as our participation in Jesus which goes way beyond knowing and seeing or even imagining. 

Our shorthand for this is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Trinity. 

The Father, the Creator, God as a noun. In our limited comprehension we compress the eternal magnitude of the Divine Essence into a personable entity that we can point to, recognize and vocalize. 

We usually use the word in the gospels “Father”, but God as a noun encompasses so much more. 

Whereas the Holy Spirit is God as a verb and in our limited minds we corelate this with wind, fire and descending … pigeons. 

It is the breath, the wind, the creative force, present at the very beginning of creation and eternally active in our universe. God as a verb. 

Then we come to the concept of the Son. This is God incarnate. It is the relational aspect of God. God in our world that we experience on our deepest personable level. 

 

Trinity is the sacrificial giving and receiving of divine love. 

It is not really in the bible, per say. 

At the end of Second Corinthians Paul signs off his letter with: 

Finally, brothers and sisters, farewell. Be restored; listen to my appeal; agree with one another; live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. 

Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you. 

 

So that last line which we often use: The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all, comes from here. It is not intrinsic to his teaching, but it does point to that later concept of Trinity. 

 

But you think that you are sure that you heard or read it somewhere in the new Testament, and it is at the very end of Matthew. 

“Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 

When they saw him, they worshiped him, but they doubted. 

And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.  

And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age." 

 

And there it is , the baptismal formula: “I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” Except they didn’t originally use this formula at all.   

 

We are sure that some later copier wrote it in because Jesus should have said it. 

Here is a little bit of simplified history. 

 

 There were a lot of religions in the Roman empire. Constantine decided to attempt to unify the empire under one religion, and as he had  had a sort of religious experience, he proclaimed that Christianity was to be that religion. 

 

Year: 312: In his ascent to dominance there was a civil war, and as they massed for battle at a place called Milvian Bridge, he saw a cross of light in the sky and heard the words. “In this sign you shall conquer”.  

 

He then beat the crap out of his opponents. You may have questions. 

 

When he settled down, the victor, he declared that the Roman empire is to become Christian, but it had been underground all over the empire for almost three hundred years. Naturally there were varieties of Christian beliefs.  

 

But Constantine wanted unity, so he ordered the bishops to gather in a council at Nicaea just outside of his new capital that he was building, Constantinople. 

 

The bishops were the elected leaders of various bands of Christians in a geographical area. He stuck them in together and ordered them to agree. 

 

 There was some conflict, and we know that Nicholas, of Santa Claus fame, punched out Arius. 

 

Constantine presided over them and in the end, they hammered out the Nicene Creed, page 920 in your hymn book, and with it the concept of the Trinity. 

 

The Arians opposed the idea. They were quite influential and had a large following, particularly on the fringes of the empire.  

 

But in the end the Orthodox won the day, and we have the doctrine of the Trinity which no one really understands because the Divine Reciprocity is beyond human comprehension. 

 

Here’s a way into the orthodox trinitarianism using the tradition terms of Father, Son and Spirit, just because it makes it easier.  

 

The mystery of the Trinity is not merely that God is three-in-one, but that God’s very being is an eternal exchange of love, a reciprocity so complete that it constitutes perfect unity. 

 

 Father, Son, and Holy Spirit exist not as isolated persons, but as a living communion, each pouring life, glory, and love into the others. This reciprocity is not optional or occasional—it is the essence of God’s life. 

 

At the heart of this divine exchange is self‑giving.  

 

The Father eternally begets the Son, giving all that He is; the Son eternally receives and returns that gift in perfect obedience and love; the Spirit proceeds as the shared breath, the bond, the delight of that mutual giving.  

 

The Trinity is therefore not a static doctrine but a dynamic movement: from the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit, back to the Father. This circularity is not repetition but fullness—an unbroken rhythm of giving and receiving. 

 

This reciprocity reveals that relationship is not something God does; it is what God is. Divine love is not sentimental affection but a pattern of life: self-donation, reception, and return.  

 

Each Person of the Trinity makes room for the others, glorifies the others, and never seeks to exist apart from the others. In this way, the Trinity becomes the model for all Christian community.  

 

To be made in the image of God is to be made for reciprocal love—mutuality, humility, and shared life. 

 

The reciprocity of the Trinity also shapes salvation. In Christ, humanity is drawn into the very life of God.  

 

The Son receives from the Father and gives to us; we receive from the Son and, by the Spirit, are empowered to return love to God.  

 

Salvation is not merely rescue from sin but participation in divine communion. As the early church taught, “God became human so that humans might become partakers of the divine life.”  

 

The Spirit enables this reciprocity in us—teaching us to pray, to love, to forgive, to give ourselves as Christ gives Himself. 

 

Ultimately, the Trinity’s reciprocity is an invitation. God does not hoard divine life but shares it. The Father opens His heart; the Son opens His arms; the Spirit opens the way.  

 

To contemplate the Trinity is to be drawn into a love that is endlessly given, endlessly received, endlessly returned. It is to discover that the deepest truth of the universe is not power or isolation, but mutual, self-giving love. 

 

Mutual, self-giving love.