The One God

Trinity Sunday, May 18, 2008

 

I have a question for you this morning.  Some of you have heard me ask this question before, but for many, this will be the first time you’ve been asked this.  As an individual person, how many are you?  Yes, you heard me right. “How many are you?” 

Let me put it this way: have any of you ever laughed or cried?  You have, so that means you have emotion.

Have any of you ever been sick, had a broken bone, a sprain, or a cut?  You have, so that means you are a physical being.

Be nice to one another, now: have any of you ever had a thought in your head?  Ever quietly thought about something?  Ever have your mind wander, except, of course, during the sermon?  You have, so that means you have intellect.

But, as I look at each one of you, I only see one of each of you.  I don’t see three Johns, I only see one John, and yet, we just established that John had three separate ‘parts’ to him.  Take away any one of those ‘parts’ – emotion, physical body or intellect – and John wouldn’t be ‘John’ any more.  But, those three parts together make him the one person he is, the person we all love and cherish.

Today is Trinity Sunday.  It’s the day we stand in awe of our God who is one, but a plurality at the same time; our God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  From the time of Moses dating back to the 1400’s/1300’s B.C., the great Shema has been spoken.  What is the great Shema?  Shema Y’isra’el, Adonai Elohenu, Adonai echad. 

Shema Y’isra’el: “Hear, O Israel,” pay attention, listen up O Israel; Adonai Elohenu: “The LORD our God”; Adonai echad: “The LORD is one.”  Here’s the thing, even from the Old Testament, even from the time of Moses (and really even before him), it has always been understood that God is a single God, but He has a pluralness about Him.  The word that gets translated as “one” in the Shema is “echad.”  Echad means “that which is united as one in contrast to separate parts.”[1]  In other words, that which has separate parts that are united as a single whole, without losing the separateness that each part has.  It’s the same way we can say “We here at Lutheran Church of the Cross are one.”  We are individuals, but we are one body, one church.   It’s like how I can look at John and say, “John has three separate parts to him, but he’s still one person.”  That’s echad – separate, but united as one.

The word that means ‘one’, as in “I’m holding one pen in my hand” is ya’cheed.[2]  That means a singular entity with no other parts.  This is not the word used to describe God.  It is never the word used to describe God.  The word used to describe God is echad.

Even the word used often in the Old Testament for God, Elohim, is a singular word, “El” meaning God, with a plural ending, denoting that God is more than just a single singularity, but rather is a single God with more than one ‘part’, more than one person.

Here’s the point – besides getting a little Hebrew in every chance I can get! – our God has always been understood to be a single God but three distinct persons.  It’s never been a question.  The Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – one God with three persons or ‘parts’, has always been a ‘given.’  It’s only been in the more recent times that people have started to cast doubt on what God’s word clearly teaches.  Big surprise!  We’re so smart, but we don’t know anything!  The more we think we’ve learned, the less we seem to know!  God’s word make’s it pretty plain and simple: God is the one and only God, and He has three persons in His oneness. 

I have to tell you, I was thinking of Kevin Hayes when I wrote this message.  Probably all of you know that Kevin is a chef.  Kevin is going to understand, maybe even better than many of the rest of us, that when you make a fruit pie, the inside of that pie – the filling – is supposed to be a little runny.  It’s not supposed to be really solid if it’s a true fruit pie.  When you go to a restaurant and you get a piece of cherry pie, and it looks like red Styrofoam in between two pieces of cardboard, that’s not a real cherry pie.  That’s…chemicals.  Real fruit pie filling is supposed to be runny.  When you cut a piece of a real fruit pie and take it out of the dish, you’ve got be quick because if you’re not, all the filling will run out.

Now picture a full cherry pie sitting in front of you.  Cut that pie into thirds; three equally sized but separate pieces.  As the knife passes through the pie, you can see the cut on the top and bottom crusts, but inside the pie, the filling is just coming back in place all around the knife as it passes through the pie.  There are no cuts, no lines of demarcation, in the filling.  What you’re left with is a pie that shows it three equal parts on the outside, but on the inside, it’s all one pie; one filling.

Now this isn’t met to be a message on baking pies either, but suddenly I’m thinking a piece of pie sounds pretty good, Stacey.  The point is, God Himself has come to us, and reveals Himself in a way that is a little more understandable to our three and a half pounds of brain.  It’s as if He’s said, “I’m too big for you to ‘get.’  You’ll never be fully able to understand me, so I’ll come to you as three separate persons – I’ll divide my crust for you – but understand that on the inside, it’s all the same.  Though I come to you in three separate persons, on the inside there is just the one, true God.” 

So how does that one true God reveal Himself?  As Father – the creator; as Jesus – the savior; and as the Holy Spirit – the faith bringer and sustainer.  And it’s all over the place in the Bible, both in the Old and New Testament.  God has always revealed Himself to us in this way.  The real question today is, “What are we going to do about it?”

We really have only two options.  One, we can reject what the Bible clearly teaches in favor of our own understanding.  We can figure we know more than God does, and ignore what God says when He says to us things like, “My ways are higher and your ways, and My thoughts are higher than your thoughts.”[3] 

Here’s the thing: our God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – loves us too much to force us to believe and submit to Him.  He’ll let us go on our own way rejecting His truth in favor of whatever else we decide we want to believe and put our trust in for eternal life in heaven.  Be careful with that, though.  There’s only one end for the person who walks down that path, and it’s not Heaven. 

The other option we have with all this is to simply accept that which has been revealed to us.  To believe what God tells us plainly in His word.  He is Father, Son and Holy Spirit – one God, yet three persons.  One God who created and sustains the universe.  One God who took on flesh and bone, and allowed Himself to be put to death and come alive again for your sins and mine.  One God who came in a mighty and powerful way at Pentecost and still comes today to bring faith and eternal life in Heaven.

Three persons, yet one God.  The one God who loves you right where you are, but loves you too much to leave you there; loves you too much to leave you alone.  The one God whose deepest desire is to have you in Heaven with Him.  The one God who will rejoice over His children with singing.[4]

That’s anyone who calls on the name of the One God in Jesus as their only savior.  That’s anyone who by the One God in the Holy Spirit has faith to believe God’s word is true in its entirety from Genesis to Revelation. 

One God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

And it’s as simple as cherry pie.

Amen.