Genesis 1:1-2:4a
When God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was complete chaos, and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.
And God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.
And God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.
And God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.”
So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.
And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind and the cattle of every kind and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.
Then God said, “Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the cattle and over all the wild animals of the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”
So God created humans in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the air and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all their multitude. On the sixth day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.
These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created. In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens…
Sermon Text
Trinity Sunday is one of the more difficult Sundays of the year. Every day that we gather together as the Church, we are celebrating a triune God. This means that God is three persons but still one complete entity. God the Father is distinct from the Son and the Spirit, but all three are still one God. This is complicated and mystical and generally not something we often try to put into words as a Church because there are several million ways of teaching it incorrectly and only a handful of ways that begin to approach the truth.
Yet, across the history of the Church, there has been a repeated call by ill informed people to do away with the concept of the Trinity. They will point to the fact that the word does not appear in scripture and then find ways to formulate a world where God exists in all sorts of inferior ways to the truth of the trinity. Some say God the Father became Jesus Christ who, upon his ascension became the Spirit. Others say Jesus was merely adopted by God and given a special place in creation, but is not actually God in the same way God is. And so on and so forth, the truth of the Trintiy is lessened until God is broken apart and diminished into something far different than what scripture reveals.
Scripture is clear that Christ is God, having full equality with God since before creation.[1] Scripture is likewise clear that the Holy Spirit is God, revered and honored in equal measure.[2] If we believe that these two are treated as God, and we believe that there is only one God, then God must exist as three persons – Father, Son, and Spirit – and still remain the singular God who we worship and adore. To be united as one, while remaining distinct, is not something that we can picture in our own human existence, but it is fully possible for God.
Our scripture today does not provide a view of the Trinity, except through the lens of our Christian faith. No person reading this scripture before Jesus walked the earth would believe God was a Trinity just by reading Genesis 1. Yet, for the Christian, our faith gives another reading.
In the Creation of the world, all three persons of God were fully present, active, and in sync with one another. God the Father, who exists in Spirit above and beyond all things, breathes the Holy Spirit onto the uncreated universe. The movement of the Spirit causes the waters to be troubled, the uncreated mass suddenly begins to contemplate the potential of order. When God speaks, the Word of God is sent forward, the only and eternally begotten Son creates at the behest of the Father’s words. “Let there be,” is followed immediately by “Here it is.” The Father sends, the Son creates, the Spirit enlivens. Across Genesis 1 and 2, nothing becomes something at the behest of the Trinity which forever existed in isolation.
The reason for the creation is never given in scripture. The closest we come is to the general theme expressed in several places – all things exist to glorify God, and so all of creation exists to glorify its creator. I would add to this a second, more relational note. As all things exist to glorify God, so all things exist to glory within what God has done, is doing, and will do. In other words, the existence we have with God is reciprocal. God does not stand on high and demand worship, building a universe for Divine Adulation, without making the creation benefit from the arrangement. The universe is created for God and God offers the fullness of the Divine Being for the creation to enjoy.
Scripture has a word that is used to describe the three persons of the Trinity, they are all participants in Θεοτης (theotēs,) a word that is usually defined as “Godhood,” “Divinity,” or “The Godhead.” Personally, I like to describe it as God’s “God-ness.” To be a being of theotēs is to be equally part of the thing which is called “God,” to participate in that unique existence.
We are then pleased to see that, throughout all of scripture and all of history, God has made this “God-ness,” available to those who seek after it. When Adam and Eve are thrown from the Garden, God does not leave them behind, but allows them to continue worship. When Cain kills Abel, God shows him love and spares him. Across centuries of violence, the Ark is built. God the Father exists in covenant with this world, through Noah and from the time of Noah until today, always working toward reconciling the world back to its creator. In due time, God sent the Spirit to rest upon certain people called, “Prophets,” and ensured that through them the eternal Word of God was made known.
All this would be sufficient and good, but God is not one to settle for “Good Enough.” In a backwater part of the world, in a strange confluence of history, God sent the Word to become flesh and dwell among us. In the person of Jesus of Nazareth, the fullness of God-ness dwelt. Jesus was fully God and fully human, his human-ness and his God-ness in perfect harmony despite being distinct. Christ lived, died, rose again, and ascended all so that we could receive the Spirit into ourselves. To this day, we are houses for the Holy Spirit, and through Christ’s participation in humanity, we are able to participate in the unity of God. Though we are never recipients of the “God-ness,” that defines God apart form creation, we are able to enter into the perfected, divine, humanity of Christ but being subsumed into his body, the Church.
The Trinity is complicated, the celebration of it ever incomplete as we struggle to imagine the kind of unity that can exist perfectly across three persons. Yet, gathered here as the people of God, we are likewise participating in a strange contradiction. You and I are distinct, you are distinct from the people around you, and yet we together are the Church, and therefore we are made into the Body of Christ. If Christ’s body was raised, the we too can be lifted from our current state. Because God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are together lifting us up. – Amen
Teach us to Number our Days 