Grace
and Peace to you, on this Trinity Sunday.
And
not only that, but Grace and Peace to you on this first Sunday of our 8-week
sermon series in which questions from the pews are answered in the pulpit.
Today’s
question is exceedingly relevant to this day in the church year, Trinity
Sunday.
The
question is this: “In the Apostles Creed
it says Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit. In the Nicene Creed it says
that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father AND THE SON. What gives?”
So
essentially, the question becomes, “Jesus comes from the Holy Spirit and the
Holy Spirit comes from Jesus, how does that work?”
The
first thing we need to consider is that we can talk about the Trinity in
multiple ways.
On
one hand we can talk about the inner Being of God.
On
the other hand we can talk about our experience of God, about how God has
interacted with God’s people from the beginning.
An
imperfect analogy for these two ways of thinking about the Trinity would be the
difference between being part of a Family
versus
looking at a family from the outside.
Think about the things you can say
about your own family dynamics that you really can’t say about those of your
neighbor’s family, no matter how much you know about them.
Simply
put, from the outside you can only understand so much. Inner Being and Outward Experience are two very different things. This
is true of both family life and the Trinity.
Yet,
in this sermon I’ll try to talk a bit about the Being of God as expressed in
the Creeds, and then about the Experience of God for all of us.
Let us pray
To
begin, it is worth noting most Heresies are caused by saying too much—about nailing things down too fully (putting God in
a box).
Orthodoxy—saying something right about God, on the other hand, is so often
taking the middle ground between two extremes. And so it is with the Trinity.
The
faith, as found in the creeds, threads the needle between two extremes—Modalism
and Arianism.
Modalism
was a view of the Trinity that simply said, “1 God is 3 because that one God
comes to us in three ways.” (The Ice/Water/Steam analogy) In Modalism it’s as
if God put on three different masks—different modes of being. So Modalism’s
focus is on the oneness of God above all
other concerns.
As
you can imagine this wreaks havoc on what scripture says about God. Think of
Gethsemane, “Father take this cup from me.” It’s like Father and Son are a ventriloquist act.
The
response to Modalism in the West was
to define God as one in Substance, Essence, and Nature, but three in Person. In
the East they defined God as one in Will, but separate in Hierarchy—The Son and
Spirit are subordinate to the Father.
This
Eastern response to Modalism is where we get Arianism.
Arianism
is an extreme form of this concern over the Hierarchy within the Trinity… eventually the question arises “How
subordinate are Spirit and Son to the Father?” (Where do they fit in the
pecking order?)
Are they in fact God, or just exalted
creatures?
Are they God at all?
Is Jesus just a good man and the
Spirit just the effects of God’s actions?
Through
a few quirks in history the Arian movement moves from the East to West and takes
off in Northern Europe. Specifically these Arians deny the full Divinity of
Jesus.
To combat this belief, the Western
Church, around the 6th century, adds a line to the Nicene Creed,
“The Holy Spirit Proceeds from the Father AND THE SON.”
That’s
what’s going on with these creeds—they are describing the Being of God in a way
that doesn’t go off the rails, either denying the uniqueness of Spirit and Son, or obliterating their divinity, claiming they are creatures.
But
let’s step back a bit, let’s move from being
to experience, from Creeds to Scripture.
Let’s get closer to an answer to the
question!
Firstly,
there is a solid basis for this addition to the Nicene Creed—adding “And the
Son.”
As
we read today Christ blows his Holy Spirit upon the Disciples—they receive the
Spirit, which gives them peace and the power to forgive and retain sins.
Throughout
John’s Gospel the Holy Spirit is so
connected to Jesus that it almost feels like it is a disembodied version of
Jesus—Jesus’ ghost if you will. (Though it’s worth nothing that in John,
Jesus also calls the Spirit “Another Advocate.”)
Still,
the Apostle Paul talks about the Spirit as “The Spirit of Christ.” And equates
being filled with the Holy Spirit with having the “Mind of Christ.”
Yes, the claim of Nicaea that, “The Spirit
Proceeds from the Son,” meshes with our experience as God’s people as expressed
in the New Testament.
At
the same time, dear Mary points us to the other side of things. Her child,
Jesus, is conceived by the Holy Spirit. His birth is the work of God, and we
know that to be true because the Spirit, that “Shy Sovereign,” has made it so,
and seal his Sonship to God.
For
that matter, at Jesus’ Baptism the Spirit, like a dove, points to Jesus,
declares, and affirms, that Jesus is the Son of God, the beloved of God.
Yes, the claim of
Apostle’s creed that, “Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit,” stands in
scripture.
Yet
this mystery goes back far beyond these Gospels. Within the first three verses
of Genesis we find Spirit and Word transforming the “Formless void.”…
But
to give some sort of answer, we might Spring boarding off the start of John’s
Gospel—we might say:
“The
Pre-existent Son of God, the Word who was with God and was God, was brought
into this world by the Power of the Spirit, and the Spirit affirmed Jesus’
identity at his Baptism.
After
Jesus’ death and resurrection, and in a variety of ways, Jesus gave the Spirit
to his disciples. The Spirit continues to point us to the mind-blowing reality
that Jesus is God’s Son.
And
for that matter, in our Baptism, the Spirit, comes to us letting us know we are
adopted into Jesus’ family—we are made Children of God—connected to the Holy Mystery
of the Being of God!
