Pastoral Letter 121
Dear Members of St. Andrew’s Uniting Church, Friends and Adherents,
Grace and peace to you all.
Last Sunday we celebrated Pentecost, which is one of the three major celebrations in the church calendar. After reflecting on the meaning of Pentecost, we concluded that the first church, which was born on Pentecost with the coming of the Holy Spirit, was a praying church, its members prayed in unity and their prayers gave results. We pray and hope that the church today, as the body of Jesus Christ, be a praying church in unity to grow and play an important role in the spread of the Gospel. This Sunday being Trinity Sunday, we will revisit and try to explain the doctrine of the Trinity.
If you will not be able to join us at our face-to-face service, you can worship with us at home. Please light a candle and follow the attached Order of Service.
Please note that I will be on leave from 27 June to 9 July and travel to Armenia to attend the 175th Anniversary celebrations of the Armenian Evangelical Church. Sunday 3 July our congregation is invited to join Crows Nest Uniting at 10:00 am for worship. Also be aware that on Sunday 26 June, we will join Lane Cove Uniting at 9:30 am at St. Columba’s for our Combined Service on the occasion of the 45th Anniversary of the Uniting Church.
Be safe and well, continue to pray, remembering those who need care, support and love and let us know if any member of the congregation that you know of needs our help and prayers.
Here are some more prayer points for this week:
- Pray for the poor, the sick, the vulnerable, the struggling and the stressed.
- Pray for those who are unwell and struggling with different kinds of medical issues.
- Pray for the churches in the Lower North Shore Zone, as we still wait the recommendations coming from the Life and Witness consultations.
- Pray for world peace and ask for God’s blessings.
- Pray for the hope that God gives.
- Please pray for Dee, Lori and me as we travel to Armenia, to go and come back safely.
Please let me know if you or anyone else has prayer points.
Best Regards,
Krikor
MESSAGE
Threefold Partnership
Romans 5:1-5
Prayer: Lord, open our hearts and minds to the wonder of Your glory and Your love, in Jesus’ name.
On Trinity Sunday, many pastors and preachers will focus on this doctrine of our Christian faith, one of the most inexpressible mysteries of our faith, and will try to do so in about twenty minutes, using words which will always fail. Probably, I will fail too.
There have been many attempts to try to bring this mystery into our level of understanding. Some have said that the Trinity is like water in its three phases: steam, liquid, and ice.
Others have said that the Trinity is like the same person with three different titles, such as a woman could be a mother, sister and daughter or a man could be a father, brother and son all at the same time.
Others have pictured the Trinity as a maple leaf like the Canadian flag or a similar leaf with three sections.
And others use an equilateral triangle as a good symbol, trying to illustrate one unit with three equal sides and angles. I prefer this image, because at the centre You can put the word God and on each equal side or angel, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. As it is an equilateral triangle, whichever way you turn, it will still look the same.
We can find many other symbols or figures to present this hard to understand and fully explain the complex concept of the Trinity, Triune God or simply Trio, the Three in One.
With all things considered, none of the above analogies or metaphors or symbols or whatever it is you want to call them is an accurate illustration.
The Trinity is three distinct Persons in One God. All three — Father, Son, Holy Spirit — have been around for all eternity; all three co-exist so that all can be apparent at the same place at the same time, as we saw in Epiphany with Jesus’ Baptism. God the Father speaking, God the Son being Baptised in the Jordan, and the Holy Spirit descending upon Him in the form of a dove. Each of the Three are able to talk to each other as distinct Persons, like when God the Son prayed to God the Father and talked about the Spirit, God’s Spirit, His Spirit and promised to send as a Counsellor and Helper, to be their source of real power to go out on their mission and do what they were supposed to do.
Also, the presence of One can be emphasized over the other, as a symbol of this Trinity in Unity at work. Christ speaks to His disciples, telling them that He is going away, going to the Father, from where He will send the Spirit, the Helper, to be with them.
The doctrine of the Trinity is the central doctrine of the Christian faith that tells us of our relation to the Father as children. Where Hindu’s see deity as a disembodied cosmic force behind everything, and Muslims, mainly extremists, see God as an angry master, we know God as Father, and Christ as brother, from which we can understand the concept of fatherhood and brotherhood.
We are sealed with the Holy Spirit, who marks us as His, and who enables us to live as God would have us to live.
“We worship one God in Trinity, and the Trinity in unity“, says the Creed of St. Athanasius. “Three Persons and One God“.
But what does that mean?
St. Augustine asks us to consider the life of the human soul, God’s image. The soul remembers, it knows, it loves. These are three activities, and yet they are the activity of one soul. In us, these personal activities are an imperfect unity–our reason and our love do not simply coincide. God is the perfect unity of personal activity:
He is, He knows, He loves; and with Him, these three are one.
Father, Word and Spirit, three persons and one God: all equally divine, all absolutely God, one nature, one reality. God is not three beings, God is one.
He is a complex God who cannot be easily described. Each of the Three Persons of our One God has different attributes yet the Three work together as One in partnership.
The Trinity, however, is a divine unity, the one and only perfect unity, of how three distinct Persons are together as One.
Our Epistle lesson from Romans 5 provides one example of how the Three Persons of our One God work together. In this instance, Paul writes about how God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit gives us hope.
Paul tells us there how we are justified with God the Father by faith. Justified means “made in alignment with“. Like the margins on a computer. When we are justified with God, we are brought into alignment, made right, with God by faith.
How?
We are justified by faith through God the Son.
God the Son acts as intercessor for us with God the Father. It is through Christ’s grace that we are able to stand before God the Father as justified. It is through the Holy Spirit, that this grace is applied into our lives. Yet these three, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, are One.
We Praise God that He is a loving Father, and the One, True, Holy and Living God. All other gods are mere idols.
We Praise Him because He is our creator, King, Shepherd, and the preserver of all things. We praise Him that His Love, Power, Wisdom, and justice is displayed throughout His Creation. All these things are worthy of Praise!
As for God the Son, we can praise Him for His obedience to live as a servant and to suffer and die upon the cross to become our Saviour. Praise Him for conquering the grave by rising from the dead. Praise Him that He made eternal life with God the Father possible.
And as for God the Holy Spirit, we can praise Him because His presence with us never ends. He is the one who reveals the word of God to us so that we not only become Christians, but also grow and become faithful witnesses.
This is why David could write such a powerful message in Psalm 8, which we read this morning. As David gazed out into the vast universe, with its celestial bodies, he couldn’t help but have a sense of awe and wonder for who God is.
That Hymn of Praise is to God as the Good Creator, Ruler, and Sustainer of everything in the Heavens, on Earth, and in the Sea.
It is a song of thanksgiving that, no matter how small we are in comparison to all that God has created, the Father is always mindful of us and caring for us.
David couldn’t help but lift up this song of praise after pondering the fact that instead of giving us the judgment our sins deserve, He gives us love and care.
That despite the fall of humanity, He still blesses us by appointing us as the governors and rulers over all of His creation to maintain its order and to shine God’s Light upon it.
This is why we join the Psalmist in crying out: “O Lord, our Lord, How Majestic is Thy name in all the Earth”. That is why we Praise God, the Trinity, the Three in one.
Anglican catechism Prayer book says:
“First, I learn to believe in God the Father, who has made me and all the World.
Secondly, in God the Son who redeems me and the whole world.
Thirdly, in God the Holy Ghost, who Sanctifies me, and all the people of God”.
Therefore, let’s humbly accept this Biblical Truth and join with all Christians in praising our God, the Trinity, Three in One. Who work together in partnership for one and only purpose, which is salvation of the lost souls of men.
Let us make sure that at least we understand the truth about the lost and sinful world, which is condemned to be judged, but through the loving and forgiving God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who work as one and in partnership, we have the possibility to be saved and inherit the eternal life for free.
Thanks be to God who works in threefold partnership for our good.
And now unto God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, three Persons, one God, be ascribed as is most justly due, all might, majesty, dominion, and power, both now and forever, world without end.
Amen!