[Sermon Archive] - [Weekly Devotional Guide]

This Week's Sermon THE HOLY TRINITY 18 May 2008 "An Alien Focus" Matthew 28:16-20 LSB Series A Pastor Philip G. Meyer Soli Deo Gloria!

Of all the Sundays in the Church Year, Holy Trinity is unique. It is the one Sunday that all the talk is about God and who he is. It is unique because all of the other Sundays we seem to talk about us, our problems, our concerns, our worries. Today we talk about God as he has revealed himself to the world in Holy Scripture. There is no speculation, only the words of God about himself. It reminds me of the hymn by Paul Gerhardt when he speaks of the splendor of the night sky.

3 Now all the heav'nly splendor
Breaks forth in starlight tender
From myriad worlds unknown;
And we, this marvel seeing,
Forget our selfish being
For joy of beauty not our own.

Text and Music: Public domain
Created by Lutheran Service Builder © 2006 Concordia Publishing House.

"For joy of beauty not our own." That's what today's focus is as we consider the beauty and wonder of the Holy Trinity. Whatever concerns you have about yourself fade into the background today because we have "An Alien Focus."

Alien. When we hear that word we usually thing of UFOs and creatures from outer space, or even maybe foreigners to our nation. As an adjective it means "unfamiliar, unknown, strange, foreign." As a noun you get "extraterrestrial, creature from outer space, space invader, Martian" [Word Thesaurus]. As we are using the term this morning it means "not belonging to one," that is, "not ours, not us."

Notice how the Introit echoes the Athanasian Creed in describing God:

Blessed be the Holy Trinity and the undivided Unity.

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.

Earlier this week a letter written by Albert Einstein, considered by some to be one of the smartest men of the last century, revealed that he considered "the idea of God as the product of human weakness" [Associated Press, May 13, 2008]. Some maintain that Einstein was not an atheist, although he could be considered a nonconventional theist. Einstein said he had "cosmic religious feeling" and actually had use for religion, however he defined it. But Einstein's God was too small for a man of such intellect. He thought only in limited human terms. He could not imagine a God who was bigger than the laws governing the universe. He seems to have thought only in a scientific framework, of a God who must be quantified, a God who fit his thinking.

Einstein was no different than any human being for whom it is always true that we are all self-absorbed. It is the root sin born of pride in self. Professor John Pless of our Ft. Wayne Seminary likes to say that man's problem is this: "God is God and you're not." Man's sin, your sin and my sin, in its root form, is self-absorption. Perhaps the name of a local business which caters to women sums it up best, "It's All About Me." Someone was clever enough to spell out what we all think but are reluctant to say. Another way of stating it is the way you find it in the Rite of Individual Confession and Absolution:

I have lived as if God did not matter and as if I mattered most [LSB p. 292].

This self-absorption takes many forms but what makes it even more dangerous today is that it has become politically correct to think and talk this way. To think that man is responsible for supposed global warming is one thing; to think that man can solve it himself is quite another! First of all, scientific opinion is far from unanimous on this whole question. It seems that every week more reputable scientists call into question the thesis that global warming exists or that it has been caused by human beings, or at least, aided and abetted by human beings who eat the meat of cattle who are said to be main contributors to global warming because they emit methane gas! One wonders where God is in all of this! God, if he exists for such persons, must be an absentee landlord who has left his creation to fend for itself! Or take the atheist who believes that he is helping the earth by being cremated and having his remains scattered out in the field as fertilizer to "help" heal and restore the planet! It's all about us!

Let's take one more instance of such self-absorption. Today, in some so-called Christian Churches, where apostasy seems to have taken over, the God of the Bible who has revealed himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, will be confessed as "Mother, Child, and Force." The feminists have recreated God in their own images! God is not the God who has revealed himself in the Bible, but the God who must undergo an adjustment, a change, to fit in with the self-absorption of women enamored with themselves and their things. They continue to be in rebellion no less than the polytheists of the Old Testament who simply made their gods in their own images. They are like the idolater that Isaiah describes:

"He cuts down cedars, or he chooses a cypress tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it. Then it becomes fuel for a man. He takes a part of it and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Also he makes a god and worships it; he makes it an idol and falls down before it. Half of it he burns in the fire. Over the half he eats meat; he roasts it and is satisfied. Also he warms himself and says, "Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire!" And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, "Deliver me, for you are my god!"" "They know not, nor do they discern, for he has shut their eyes, so that they cannot see, and their hearts, so that they cannot understand. No one considers, nor is there knowledge or discernment to say, "Half of it I burned in the fire; I also baked bread on its coals; I roasted meat and have eaten. And shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?" He feeds on ashes; a deluded heart has led him astray, and he cannot deliver himself or say, "Is there not a lie in my right hand?"" (Isaiah 44:14-20, ESV, emphasis mine)

This Festival of the Holy Trinity directs our attention back to the unrestrained majesty of God, a majesty that cannot be contained, explained, or even completely understood. It is a mistake to think that one must understand God before one can believe in him. That was Einstein's mistake. One need not understand God. One need only confess him as he has revealed himself in the Scriptures.

And yet, this Holy Trinity, this unfathomable, unexplainable God, has gotten involved in our lives. Back to the antiphon of the Introit for the Day:

Blessèd be the Holy Trinity and the undivided Unity.
Let us give glory to him because he has shown his mercy to us.

Although He is God and man, He is not two, but one Christ: one, however, not by the conversion of the divinity into flesh, but by the assumption of the humanity into God;

In the Sacrament of the Altar, too, you receive all that our Lord Jesus Christ has to give because if you have forgiveness of sins, you also have life and salvation, and then you enjoy fellowship with the Holy Trinity. God is in you and you are in God. We call it Holy Communion. God himself communes with you, eats and drinks with you. Christ is himself Meal and Host, giving himself completely for you.

And so today we have "An Alien Focus" as we meditate on God, the God who created all things, the God who has redeemed us, and the God who has made us his own through Holy Baptism. This command our Lord has given his Church to do: "Make disciples of all nations by baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to do all that I have commanded you." We also have our Lord's promise that this Holy Trinity will always be with us as we use his Word and Sacraments.

Our Introit sums it up best:

Blessèd be the Holy Trinity and the undivided Unity.
Let us give glory to him because he has shown his mercy to us.