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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Happy Father’s Day to those who are fathers in various ways! While today is Father’s Day on our secular calendar, on the Church calendar today is the Feast of the Holy Trinity. As we sang in the antiphon of the Introit, we give glory to the Holy Trinity because He has shown His mercy to us (Psalm 16:8-11; antiphon: Liturgical Text). In reflecting on the Triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—especially in view of today’s Gospel Reading, in which “the center of dispute is the question of fatherhood” (Roehrs-Franzmann, ad loc John 8:12-59, p.93), we could almost call today “the Heavenly Father’s Day”. After all, the Divinely‑inspired St. Paul does write that from God the Father is named all fatherhood in heaven and on earth (Ephesians 3:14 ESV margin). In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus speaks of His honoring His Father and of His Father’s glorifying the Son, and, elsewhere in St. John’s Gospel account, Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit’s glorifying the Son (John 16:14). Considering today’s Gospel Reading, this morning we realize that “The glory of the Holy Trinity is Christ crucified for you”.
Today’s Gospel Reading is arguably the climax of the Jewish leaders and Jesus’s ongoing back‑and‑forth argument over fatherhood that St. John uniquely reports in chapter eight, which chapter “may be one of the most polemically charged” chapters of his Gospel account (St‑Onge, CPR 32:3, p.11). The Jewish leaders had claimed Abraham and God as their father, but Jesus said that they were children of the devil (John 8:12-47). Then, as we heard, the Jewish leaders said that Jesus was a Samaritan and had a demon—whatever the background of those statements, they were at a minimum insults; likely also rejection of Jesus on religious grounds; if not as well arguably blasphemy against the Holy Spirit for attributing essentially to the devil, in this case, Jesus’s teaching (for example, Mark 3:22-30). To be sure, the Jewish leaders then picked up stones to throw at Jesus, apparently thinking that He blasphemed by making Himself God (confer John 10:30‑33).
After watching some of Israel and Iran’s mutual bombing live on television the other day, I was thinking about how both Israel’s majority Jewish population and Iran’s majority Islamic population have in common their rejection of Jesus Christ as the Son of God and so also their rejection of the Holy Trinity. Like with the Jewish leaders in today’s Gospel Reading, such unbelief dishonors Jesus and so also dishonors the Father and the Holy Spirit. However, even we, who at least claim to believe, can also dishonor the Holy Trinity, as we bear the Triune Name but live lives that do not honor God. For example, we fail to honor our parents and other authorities. We fail to help and support our neighbors in their physical needs. We fail to lead sexually pure and decent lives. We fail to help our neighbors improve and protect their possessions and income. We fail to defend our neighbors, speak well of them, and explain everything in the kindest way. And, we fail to be content with what God has given us. In failing in all of those ways, we fail to honor God. As Jesus essentially says in today’s Gospel Reading, the One Who seeks the Son’s glory judges those who fail to glorify Him. We and all sinners deserve death, both now in time and in eternity, apart from God’s love and mercy that lead Him to call us, like Wisdom in today’s Old Testament Reading (Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31), and so enable us to turn in sorrow from our sin, to trust Him to forgive our sin, and to want to stop sinning. When we so repent, then God forgives us. God forgives our sinful nature and all our actual sin, whatever our actual sin might be. God forgives us for Jesus’s sake.
Contrary to the Jewish leaders’ question in today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus did not “make Himself out” to be anyone. As the Son of God, He was begotten from eternity. As the Son of the Virgin Mary, He was born in time. Jesus was born as a descendant of Abraham, not of a Samaritan man, as the Jewish leaders may have thought (confer John 8:41), and yet Jesus was greater than Abraham. With a promise to give eternal life and with the Divine Name “I am” first given to Moses to use (Exodus 3:13-16), Jesus rightly could claim to be God because He was God: of one substance with the Father and the Holy Spirit. We give glory to the Triune God because He has shown His mercy to us. Especially in St. John’s Gospel account, the glory of God is seen by faith on the cross. On the cross, God’s love for the world and His will to save the world are revealed (Weinrich, ad loc John 8:48-50, p.179). On the cross, Jesus died for you and for me, in our place, as our substitute. Abraham, who rejoiced when promised the birth of a son, in whom all the nations of the world would be blessed, in God’s provision of a lamb as a substitute sacrifice for Isaac arguably saw Jesus’s day and was glad (confer Weinrich ad loc John 8:56, p.192). In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus escaped the Jewish leaders’ death by stoning, but later, after another similar claim of His being true God (for example, Luke 22:66-71), He was crucified and died. Yet, as we sang in today’s Introit and heard quoted in today’s Second Reading (Acts 2:14a, 22-36), God did not abandon Jesus’s soul to the grave or let His Holy One see corruption, but God raised Jesus from the dead. When we believe that Jesus is true God lifted up on the cross for us, then we do not die eternally in our sins (confer John 8:24, 28).
After last Sunday’s Pentecost Divine Service, I was driving north on Highway 59 for a quick visit with my mom, when I saw two bright yellow signs on the west side of the road: one said “God”, and the other sign said “Jesus”, leaving me to wonder what happened to the third sign that said “Holy Spirit”, or if there ever was a third sign that said “Holy Spirit”. Unlike the other Gospel Readings for Trinity Sunday in the other years of our Three-Year Series (Matthew 28:16‑20; John 3:1-17), today’s Gospel Reading does not explicitly mention the Holy Spirit, but that lack of an explicit mention does not mean that the Holy Spirit is not in view, both as being denied by the Jews as working in the teaching of Jesus and as One Who also glorifies the Son. As I mentioned earlier, elsewhere Jesus says the Holy Spirit glorifies the Son, and Jesus says that the Holy Spirit glorifies Him by taking from taking what is the Son’s and declaring it to His apostles, who in turn declare it to the Church. As we in the Church “keep”, or “treasure”, Jesus’s Word, really Jesus Himself, we are His disciples (confer Weinrich, ad loc John 8:51, p.170), born from above of water and the Spirit and so given entrance to the Kingdom of God and eternal life in Holy Baptism, so we do not see death forever (John 3:1-5). In Holy Baptism, unclean spirits give way to the Holy Spirit, and the Triune Name is put upon us. The Holy Spirit given to the apostles and their successors, pastors today, in their ordinations, makes possible Holy Absolution (John 20:22-23), and the Holy Spirit is also at work as we in the Holy Supper faithfully receive bread that is Christ’s Body given for us and wine that is Christ’s Blood shed for us, which give us the forgiveness of sins and so also life and salvation (confer John 6:63). The God‑man Jesus Christ, Who arguably in today’s Gospel Reading miraculously hid Himself, certainly can likewise miraculously be present on this altar, distributed by the pastor, and received by those who commune at this rail.
As we live each day with sorrow over our sin and trust in God to forgive our sin for Jesus’s sake, we live in God’s forgiveness of sins. We do not have to be afraid of those times when we fail to give glory to God as we should with our thoughts, words, and deeds, for we are forgiven by God through His Word and Sacraments. We can be like Abraham: as the psalmist says, “This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24; confer Weinrich, ad loc John 8:56, pp.193-198). Even if we experience temporal death before Jesus comes in glory on the Last Day, we will be like Abraham and David are now, alive with the Lord (for example, Luke 22:38), awaiting the resurrection and glorification of our bodies and the declaration of our judgment on the basis of our Spirit-produced good‑works as evidence of our faith in Jesus Christ.
“The glory of the Holy Trinity is Christ crucified for you”. We who are sorry for our sin and trust God to forgive us are saved by grace for Christ’s sake. Still, it’s all of Their feast day, for as we confessed in the Athanasian Creed, the glory of the Godhead of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is equal (for example, Lutheran Service Book 319). To be sure, despite that detailed Trinitarian confession, the Holy Trinity remains a great mystery, but we praise the three Blessed Persons and their undivided Unity. Let us truly give glory to the Triune God, because He has shown His mercy to us.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +