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This Week's Sermon The Holy Trinity 03 June 2007 "Getting It Right" John 8:48-59 LSB Series C Pastor Philip G. Meyer Soli Deo Gloria!

Whoever desires to be saved must, above all, hold the catholic faith.
Whoever does not keep it whole and undefiled will without doubt perish eternally.

So we just confessed in the words of the Athanasian Creed, this great and last of the three ecumenical creeds that define genuine Christendom over against all other faiths. On this First Sunday after Pentecost the Church celebrates the Festival of the Holy Trinity. It is a summary statement of the entire first half of the liturgical year which began last December with Advent. Up until today the Church has focused on the events of our Lord's Incarnation, Epiphany, suffering and death upon the Cross, his resurrection from the dead, his Ascension to the right hand of the Father, and the sending of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. Today we look back over this long sweep of history and realize that Holy Trinity has acted on behalf of this world, on your behalf.

There is no Goldilocks faith confessed today, but something much sturdier and certain. You remember Goldilocks from your childhood, I'm sure. She was the little girl who went for a walk in the forest and came upon a house. Inside, she found three bowls of porridge. The first bowl was too hot and the second bowl was too cold. But the third bowl she pronounced "just right." She rendered the same judgment on the chair she sat in-even though she broke this little chair-and on the bed she lay on.

The case can be made that most Americans have adopted the Goldilocks attitude toward religion, that is, affirming choices about what one confesses that seem not too hard, not too soft, not too hot but not too cool. Mostly Americans are just looking for a religion that they can call "just right," rather middle of the road, affirming those things on the right and the left.

More accurately, we might call that Pluralism. That's what American civil religion tends to be, the Goldilocks faith, not too hard, not too soft, not too hot and not too cool. By and large many people are uncomfortable with doctrinal statements that exude certainty because certainty will, by definition, exclude all others. That gives a confession which is nothing more than lukewarm mush, something one might feed to a baby, but it cannot sustain itself in such a world. By its very nature it rejects the truth.

Most people are looking for a god who remains somewhat aloof, that is, until the chips are down. Then they want a god who acts for them, who takes their side regardless of whether or not they are wrong. Take the Jewish leaders in our reading. Jesus made very straightforward claims as to his Person. He claimed that he was speaking the very word that the Father in heaven had given him to speak, but they would hear none of the truth. They accused him of having a demon, along with being a Samaritan, an outsider.

Jesus pointed to the fact that he honored the Father who sent him. He appealed to these leaders by inviting them to faith in him. Those who keep Jesus' word, that is, believe that he is the Savior, shall never taste death. It all reached a climax when Jesus revealed his eternal attribute to them in response to their reference to Abraham.

"Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad." (John 8:56, ESV)

"Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am." (John 8:58, ESV)

Our world is not really looking for a God who gets his hands dirty, so to speak, by becoming a true human being, who identifies so completely with them that he takes on their sin and guilt and carries it in his own body fully knowing that it means his death by crucifixion. "This is God?" they ask. This can't be the Almighty Creator, the Ruler of all. He would never do such a thing! He would not require innocent blood on behalf of the guilty.

The world is guilty of many things, but the greatest guilt this world has centers in its idolatry, its rejection of the Holy Trinity. The world doesn't want to confess its real predicament, that of being alienated from God and his enemy. Man will not confess himself to be the rebel that he is. He prefers to think of himself as fully capable of earning his salvation back, if he ever gets that far.

Our age has so watered down the truth of God that it no longer wants to think that there is a judgment. No, they prefer a Goldilocks kind of God, "not too hard, not too soft, not too hot and not too cool, but just right." Most people want a God who never condemns their own sins but condemns the sins of others. When they themselves fall under God's righteous condemnation, they begin to throw stones at God. "He's too hard, too mean, too vindictive. My God wouldn't condemn people because of this or that." Quite evidently not! One's idol, that is, the idol of one's own imagination and making, will never do that.

At the center of today's confession is what the Creed calls "the catholic faith," that is, the universal faith held by Christians.

And the catholic faith is this, that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, neither confusing the persons nor dividing the substance.

Outside of the confession of this Holy Trinity there is no salvation. Period. No Goldilocks theology here, thank you! There is confessed only the pure truth of God's Word, laid out for all to hear. The Church did not pull her punches, afraid to offend some person who didn't confess these things. Rather, the Church laid it all out plainly and in detail, in details that are often hard to understand but which nonetheless confess the truth of God. Here is how God has revealed himself to the world!

Sad to say, there are those denominations which still go by the name Christian who have long since abandoned this historic faith because they have long since abandoned the Word of God as the sole determiner of doctrine and practice. For example, they reject the Persons revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit because they accuse the creed of being antifeminist. Instead, to avoid all mention of the maleness of God, they speak of the Holy Trinity as Creator, Child, and Spirit. It is no longer the Holy Trinity they confess but a god of their own making. One local congregation made such a far-reaching statement on its church sign when it said that it confessed a God who was beyond anthropomorphism. Fortunately, most people don't know what that word even means, so most might not be attracted to such a church, but the word means "ascribing human form or attributes to God" [Random House Dictionary of the English Language]. Thus, they have confessed a god who is not Incarnate as our Lord Jesus Christ is. They have fallen for the old Arian heresy against which the Athanasian Creed warns. It might be half a truth to confess that God is "mysterious," but it falls into error when it denies the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

There is nothing more important than getting God right, that is, confessing one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, as the Creed confesses because all other counterfeits bring death. For these people it is as if precision is the enemy. Yet, when it comes to microsurgery, precision is everything. A cut a millimeter to the left or right might spell disaster. The surgeon doesn't use his Swiss Army Knife to do surgery; he uses precise tools, lasers, etc., so that he can be absolutely precise.

As I have confessed previously and as you have heard Vicar confess previously, neither of us liked math very much in school, mostly because math demands precision which we did not really care about. Those of you who work with math should know that I appreciate your diligence. You have a gift that I have never had. Higher level math problems were either right or wrong. There are no exceptions, not even for old-time's sake. And if your bank statement is off a few hundred dollars and it isn't in your favor, you simply don't accept that. Your statement is either right or wrong.

Why is it that so many people are willing to accept things about God that simply are not true? It's because of the Old Adam. He doesn't want to be judged by God. He rebels. He fights. He tries to redefine God in his own image, into the Goldilocks image, "not too hard, not too soft, not too hot, not too cold, but just right," a lukewarm bowl of porridge.

Here the great "I AM," the Second Person of the Holy Trinity offers freedom from sin, death, and hell. He offers this deliverance through faith in his Word. Trust his Word and you will never see death. Eternal death will not be your end. He frees you from all the accusations of a guilty conscience and brings you back to the Father. All of this is carried out by the Holy Spirit, who takes what belongs to Christ and the Father, and distributes it to you in Word and Sacrament. And this same Jesus who died and rose, also ascended to the right hand of the Father where he reigns for his Church, for you! Think of the comfort of that, a true man reigns in heaven-for you!

This Jesus, true God and true man in one indivisible Person, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, along with the Father and the Holy Spirit, is the only way to eternal life. Everything else is counterfeit and lie. A Goldilocks faith can never save you. It may feel "just right" but it is a lie.

This is the catholic faith; whoever does not believe it faithfully and firmly cannot be saved.

The antiphon of today's Introit sums it up so well:

Blessed be the Holy Trinity and the undivided | Unity.*
Let us give glory to him because he has shown his mer- | cy to us.