Central Lutheran Church - Elk River
Weekly sermons from our Central Lutheran Church preaching team plus quick reflections from Pastor Ryan Braley.
Real talk, ancient wisdom, and honest questions — all designed to help you learn, grow, and find encouragement when you need it most.
At Central, our mission is simple: FOLLOW Jesus together, be a community where you BELONG, and LOVE our neighbors across the street and around the world.
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Central Lutheran Church - Elk River
Before the Beginning Begins with Pastor Ryan Braley
What if the most profound theological concept in Christianity was actually an invitation to the most beautiful relationship in existence? When a community member asked "What is the Trinity?", it opened the door to exploring not just a doctrine, but a divine dance that has existed since before time began.
The Trinity finds its roots in the tension between ancient Israel's monotheism (expressed in the Shema prayer: "The Lord our God, the Lord is one") and Jesus's revolutionary claims about himself. When Jesus declared "Before Abraham was, I am" and "I and the Father are one," he wasn't just speaking poetically—he was making claims that would fundamentally reshape how we understand God's nature.
After four centuries of theological reflection, the church articulated what we now call the Trinity: one God existing eternally as three distinct but equal persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each reveals something profound about God's character. The Father represents protection, provision, and personal care—the one who takes responsibility for our wellbeing. The Son bridges the cosmic gap between humanity and divinity; as C.S. Lewis observed, just as Shakespeare could only meet Hamlet by writing himself into the story, God entered our world in Jesus to make himself known. The Spirit brings divine life, power, and presence—like breath giving vitality to everything it touches.
What makes this mystery truly transformative is understanding that from eternity past, God has existed as a perfect communion of love. The Father, Son, and Spirit were complete in their relationship—lacking nothing, needing nothing. Yet love by nature creates and shares. The Trinity didn't create humans because of some cosmic loneliness or need for worship. Rather, the best things in life are meant to be shared, which is why God created us and invites us into this divine relationship.
Perhaps Augustine said it best: "The Trinity is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be adored." May you discover what it means to participate in the beautiful, vibrant life of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—not just in some distant future, but in your everyday existence right now.
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Amen. Thank you, richard. Let's pray this morning. God, we give you thanks for your presence here and we thank you for your light and your life and your love, and thank you for these beautiful scriptures. And we ask God that by your Holy Spirit, you would come and awaken us and enliven us and inspire us and that, yeah, we'd have just a deeper sense of the love of God that was in Jesus on the cross, and this love of the Father. And pray you bless us this morning as we unpack these ancient ideas and help us to be creative in our thinking. And, as always, god, may we take these things that we learned this morning, may we give them away to others. And, as always, god, may we take these things that we learned this morning, may we give them away to others, and may we be a blessing to all whom we encounter this morning and everywhere we go in our lives, and bless us in Jesus' name. Amen, amen. You can be seated.
Speaker 1:Good morning everyone. How are we doing? Good to see you all? We are beginning a new sermon series this morning. Can everyone see my board, by the way? Okay, we're going to add to it, so you've got to be able to see it. We don't have any slides this morning. We're going strictly old school analog. This morning. You're welcome and we're beginning a new series called you Pick, and we're allowing you. Guys. We've actually got a number of questions and ideas and scriptures and thoughts about what to preach upon, and so we do this at the end of every summer. We take about six, seven, eight weeks and just preach through ideas and questions that you might have, and so we've got a lot already. The ones that we don't have time for. All of them, we try to carry them over to the next summer, or we'll just turn them into a podcast or an awakened email, or just grab me for coffee and I'll try to respond. I always say they're not answers, they're responses Cause I don't know. I mean, I don't know if I have all the answers. I can respond, though, in some ways, and hopefully it'd be something interesting. And this morning the person asked Michelle who was at the eight 30 gathering. She asked what is the Trinity? Can you explain it to me? How does it work? Who are all the persons of the Trinity? And I must warn you at the 830, man, we got a lot in there, so you got to pay attention, buckle up, take notes and we're going to have a crash course on the Trinity. Are you ready? Excellent.
Speaker 1:And it reminded me, like my son, my son Gavin, who's here? I think he's here. Is he here? Oh, he's here somewhere. Oh, he's out there. I'm driving him to school in about two hours. So we're driving to Chicago in a couple hours.
Speaker 1:But when he was younger, he was about five years old. He's ever been the sort of philosophically minded of my kids. I'm putting him to bed and his brother's above in the bunk bed above him, and he's like five years old. And he's like hey, dad. So I kiss him, I hug him five-year-old, and he's like okay, but also Jesus is the son, and then there's the father and then there's the Holy Spirit. Right, I go, yeah, he goes. Well, that sounds like three gods to me. I'm like okay, he goes. Can you explain it to me? I'm like buddy it, it would suck me right in. I knew he was trying to just stay awake longer, but I couldn't resist, I had to. And his mom leans no, we're not doing that tonight. Go to bed. So this one's for Gavin, for that sermon I couldn't give to you years ago because your mom wouldn't let me. So this is for you. Now, gavin.
Speaker 1:I'm going to unpack this 2,000-year tradition of this talk of the Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Spirit, this mysterious sort of unexplainable, profoundly foundational piece of Christian history. I'm going to do it in 30 minutes or less. That's my goal, and some of you I know like to have an idea of where we're going before I go there. So I'm like we're doing whiteboard. We're going to go analog. I'm going to tell of where we're going before I go there. So I'm going to. I'm like we're doing whiteboard, we're going to go analog. I'm going to tell you where we're going ahead of time. Would that be okay? Make a couple of you more secure.
Speaker 1:We're going to talk this morning first about the Shema and we know what the Shema is Great. I'm going to explain what the Shema is and then I'll unpack the Shema a little bit for you guys. And then later on I'm going to talk about a couple of near-death experiences. Yeah, get ready for that. By the way, chris is back there. Good to see you, chris Up, right? Yeah, oh, man. If you weren't here last week you missed out man. But in all seriousness, we're glad you're feeling better. He's doing well, as you can see, and just needed a break. He just needed some time away. No, he's doing really well, though you can go and give him a high five and we're glad to see him. I know he hates the spotlight on him right now, so I'm going to get it back up here on the meme, but near-death experiences.
Speaker 1:We're going to talk about a couple of issues you know which issues I'm talking about and then I'm going to talk about 400 years later yeah, oh boy and then I'm going to talk about mysteries and problems, and then I'm going to end by talking about the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Sound good? Here's the point ahead of time, though, before I get any further. You got to know this because I want to give you the answer to the test. I don't know if we can understand the complexity of the Trinity. I'm going to try, but what I need you to know is that what we see in the relationship between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is this incredible, vibrant relationship, and the point of all of this is that somehow, in some way, you and I have been invited into that relationship of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit that's been around since the beginning of all time. The Father and the Son and the Spirit have existed in this beautiful communal relationship together and they lacked nothing and they needed nothing. And yet somehow you and I all, this time later, are invited to be a part of that beautiful relationship of the Trinity. Fair enough. So if you leave with nothing else, hear that. But I want you to notice then, as I unpack this, what is that relationship like between the Father and the Son and the Spirit, and what does it mean for us to be invited into that kind of a life? And of course, this begins with the Shema.
Speaker 1:The Shema is this ancient Jewish prayer. You can find it in Deuteronomy and it's this prayer that was this foundational declaration of faith for the Jewish people. And it goes like this the opening line is this beautiful line. It says, by the way, the word Shema literally means to listen or hear. It's a command, so hear or listen. And so the prayer which they said by the Jews said it twice a day. To this day, many Jews recite this prayer two times a day. They'll say it at festivals and holy days, and they say it as a reminder to themselves of who they are and who God has called them to be, the promises that God had made to them, the promises that God will come to fulfill in the future. It was this beautiful fabric, a part of the fabric of their existence as Jewish people.
Speaker 1:And the Shema opens like this Hear, listen O Israel, shema Yisrael in the Hebrew, listen O Israel, the Lord, our God. The Lord is one. And it says love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. Now you might recognize that, because Jesus, years and years later, is asked hey, what's the greatest of all commandments? And he quotes the Shema. And he quotes a couple other Old Testament passages, but he quotes the Shema love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and soul and mind. Of course he would have said that prayer as a young boy, probably his whole life. He said the Shema. So he knew the Shema, but the Lord, our God, is one. It was his declaration of what it meant to be a person of the family of Israel, of the nation of Israel, the people of Israel, and so God had made this covenant with them. He was like, hey, worship me and worship me alone.
Speaker 1:So in this prayer, the Shema, which is part of the fabric, the central part of their Jewish life. It was this prayer the Lord, our God, is one. It declared the singularity, the oneness of God. Because for the Jewish people, especially early on, the big problem for them is that they worshiped all kinds of gods. In fact, that was the way that things worked back then. Problem for them is that they worshiped all kinds of gods. In fact, that was the way that things worked back then. In the ancient world, there were many gods. It was a polytheistic is the fancy $5 word for the people that lived back then.
Speaker 1:When God comes to Abram and Sarai, this is the father and mother of the people of Israel. You know, father Abraham had many sons, right? So Abraham was a real character in the Bible. And God comes to him seemingly out of nowhere. He's like hey, I want to fix the brokenness. That sort of starts with Adam and Eve. You have Adam and Eve and then all heck breaks loose and then Cain kills Abel, and then by the time Noah comes along, everything's wicked and it's just terrible. And God's like okay, we're going to start over. I'm going to choose Abram and Sarai. I'm going to have a partnership with you, abraham and Sarah, I'm going to bless you, make you into this great nation. It'll be so big you'll outnumber the stars in the sky. And so he builds this great nation.
Speaker 1:And now Abram was probably, undoubtedly. He worshipped many gods. That's what they did in that part of Mesopotamia, in this land called Ur. They worshipped many gods. So he's like, okay, sure, I'll worship this one. And then God begins to dial in, like, no, but I'm the only one I want you to worship. And so he wants them to become like worshipers of one God, and they, over time, they try to do this, but they don't do a very good job. They worship lots of foreign gods, pagan gods, and it's a mess. For a long time, it becomes a problem for them. Finally, though, in around 587 bc, the people of israel they're huge now, a big, huge people group they're taken into captivity, into babylon and babylon, and they're still undoubtedly saying this prayer they finally get it. Oh, we should stop worshiping other gods, because the lord, our god, is one. Worship and love the lord, your heart, soul, might. Your heart, soul, might and strength. That's the prayer of the Shema. Okay, so they begin like okay, we are now what we call not polytheists, we're monotheists. We will worship one God. As my son, gavin, has still pointed out, we will worship one God. No, that was great, all good and fair. So around that time and fair.
Speaker 1:So around that time, and then up to the time of Jesus, the Jews were strictly monotheists and they doubled down no, we'll worship no other gods. It leads to chaos, it leads to disruption, it leads to all kinds of brokenness. We're going to worship only God alone. Then Jesus shows up and starts to say things that cause an uproar. Now we read it like oh, not a bit Like back then. Imagine being a Jew who was a monotheist. You'd seen your people's history and the brokenness that came out of worshiping other gods. Like, we only worship God alone and the God of the. You know of the covenant of Abraham and Sarah.
Speaker 1:And Jesus begins to say things that make you think that he thinks he's God. Well, he can't be God, because Yahweh is God and we don't worship two gods. So, for example, there's this time where Jesus is arguing with these Jewish leaders I love this story and they talk they bring up. They bring up Abraham because he's the father of our people and he's this great man of covenant faith he's, he's, he's venerated. We love Abraham and Sarah. And so Jesus like, brings up Abraham and like you, you, how do you know Abraham? I mean, you think you're greater than Abraham Because Abraham was the greatest. You don't dare shake the throne of Abraham. He's the man. And you think you're greater than Abraham Because he's talking like he is and Jesus goes. I'll tell you something, I'll tell you what.
Speaker 1:Before Abraham existed, I am. Jesus says. This is like an unbelievable mic drop in this day and age. He said before Abraham was even born, I was hanging around and I am. I am is the language that God uses to describe himself to Moses. So like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, listen, homie, before you didn't exist before You're like 30 years old, how can you say you existed before Abraham? You're barely that old. And he's like no, but not only that, not only did I exist before Abraham, but I am the I am. So he's saying I was around before Abraham and I'm also, I'm God. Like, no, you're not. And they pick up stones to kill him.
Speaker 1:Now, this is his first near death experience of Jesus and this is in the text. I love it. But then he slipped away in their midst. What he slips away and he just disappears in their midst. Later Jesus is talking to more Jewish leaders and he says something. He goes hey, just so you know, if you want to see the Father God, if you want to know what God is like, look at me. I and the Father, me and God are one. Like uh no, you're not. There's only one God, a singular God, and he's this ineffable, the unexplainable, the transcendent God who is occasionally here and imminent, but you're not God. There's only one God and we're not going to worship you and God. So how dare you? This is blasphemy. They pick up stones to kill him again.
Speaker 1:This is his second near-death experience and the text tells us that he disappears in their midst and sort of slips between them and disappears. So we learn two things. One, in this part of Jewish history, you never would declare yourself as equal to God or greater than Abraham. You don't do that. And number two, we learned that Jesus was, in addition to being a Messiah, was also a ninja. He just would slip between the stealthy like how does he do that? I love those stories, like where did he go? It's like those old cartoons they all dive on the bad guy and then they come up and he's gone. That was Jesus.
Speaker 1:Well, this raises all kinds of issues. Jesus begins to be like this. He starts saying all kinds of scandalous things You're not God. How can you say that? And then, when he dies, he's resurrected and the disciples, his closest followers, begin to worship him as God. No, no, no, no, no. The Lord, our God, is one. There's not two gods. What are you talking about? And the language Jesus used himself caused all kinds of issues.
Speaker 1:Then, not long after Paul, the apostle who had this divine revelation of Jesus, he begins to write about Jesus as the ruler and authority over all the world, and that God has put his uh, put all things under his feet. Like he's the authority over the whole cosmos. What Jesus is? Just Jesus the Christ. He writes about it Like hey, he's the image of the invisible God. In him All things were created, all things hold together. In him was all, all things were in him. What he's like? This cosmic gloom that's everywhere and has existed for all of time? What Jesus the Christ? How can you say so? Paul even writes that Jesus is also God. Well, how can that be?
Speaker 1:There's all these problems, all these issues begin to arise for the people of this Jewish faith and these Jewish Christians are like well, we worship him as God. He sort of says he is God, he represents God. What does this mean? Well, it takes the church about 400 years to kind of wrestle this out. So if you don't know your church history, about 400 years after Jesus they begin to like really kind of dial in language to use about this God who seems to have like a plurality to God, even though God is one. This is the Shema, the oneness of God. There's also a plurality to God, even though God is one. This is the Shema, the oneness of God. There's also a plurality to God. He's one, but he's also got like multifacets. There's like this plurality. How does this work?
Speaker 1:And they come up with this language called the Trinity, and it took them about 400 years. By the way, the next time your kid comes to you with a, a math problem like I've been working on this problem for forever, for like 10 minutes, I don't know how to do it oh, keep going, you can call me when you've reached 400 years and we'll talk. You know, that's sort of a joke, but I thought it was funny. 400 years, and at this council it's a. You know, you can google it, they. They come up with actually two councils.
Speaker 1:Later they come with this idea of the Trinity and like, hey look, god is one, he's one in his essence. His essence is like this one. He's one essence, one God, but within his essence there are three persons there's the Father, there's the Son and there's the Holy Spirit. And that's kind of how they explain it, not the greatest metaphysical description, because how can you explain God? It's really difficult. But we know it's one God. There's three persons. They're co-equal, they're all equal. There's no hierarchy of value and one isn't more important than the other. They're all present all the time. They're always both active together, but they have their unique kind of personhood and role and they're all God. And so they have this incredible declaration and the creeds which we have are these declarations of what it is that we worship the Father, the Son and the Spirit. One God, but three persons. 400 years it took them. Now we can unpack this mystery for a couple of hours if we have time. We don't have time, so here's what I'll say.
Speaker 1:The great thinker, st Augustine, said it this way. He says the Trinity is not a mystery to be solved. Excuse me, let me start over. Augustine said the Trinity is not a problem to be solved, rather, it's a mystery to be adored. So we've spent centuries trying to figure out what is this problem of the Trinity? How do we solve it? How do we talk about three in one? And he says the Trinity is not a problem to be solved, but it's this mystery to be adored, to look at with wonder and awe, because it's hard talking about God. How do you do it? It's like a three-dimensional object talking about a 10-dimensional object. We don't even know, we don't have language for that and language is all we have. Language falls short and God is complex. He's God and actually in the Old Testament, you see, like this incredibly complex picture of God and there's. You know, how do we as humans talk about God? We'll do the best we can and we use words and we use, but it's ultimately it's a mystery and we just don't know in fullness. But here's what I would say then, as opposed to sort of unpacking you know how does this work and who is? We're going to start.
Speaker 1:I want to talk about the relationship of the father and the son and the spirit and what it means for you and for me Fair enough. So what does this mean, this dynamic relationship of the father and the son and the spirit? What does it mean that you and I have been invited into this relationship? Well, first of all, when Jesus shows up and begins to talk about God, he calls him father. He calls him father Many times. He calls him father. I mean, right there, it's incredibly profound. He doesn't call him a CEO, a manager. He calls him father. He's not the supreme manager of all the souls. He's not, like you know, the verified Lord and content creator. That's for you, young ones out there. No, he's not the secretary of eternal security. He's God, the father, and Jesus talks about him as though he's his father. I love it.
Speaker 1:In John 17, jesus says hey, the father has loved me since the beginning of all creation. What so? Somehow, before all things, jesus, or something about Jesus, existed back here with the father, and the father loved him from the beginning of all of creation. So, right from the jump, okay. In this dynamic relationship with the father and the father loved him from the beginning of all of creation. So, right from the jump, okay. In this dynamic relationship with the father of the son of spirit, there's like this, there's love, there's uh, existence before anything else was created. So jesus, though he was a human, uh was around before, some part of jesus, so anyway. So there's this dynamic flow of love in this relationship and it's called the Father.
Speaker 1:For many reasons, god the Father. Now, for many of us today it's kind of a hurdle. Does that mean God is a man? And you have these images of a white-haired, long beard kind of floating around on a cloud, a picture of God? Well, no, of course God isn't a male, any more than God is a female. God is not a human, god doesn't have biological body parts, and so God is none of those things. But the image of a father is beautiful, and here's why, in the ancient world, a father, well, let me say this First of all, in the ancient world they didn't really know how biology worked, and so when someone had a baby, they're like, oh, they kind of looked at everything and like, oh, back then they didn't really understand, understand genetics or the ovum yes, I just said ovum and we're going to be okay and when they saw how babies were made, they said, oh, the man has life within him and the man puts that life into the female, and then the life you can Google this later and then the female kind of houses or holds that life as like an incubator, and that was how babies were made.
Speaker 1:They didn't understand it Like, oh so the man has the life within him and the female is this protective. You know, housing unit of the baby, one was not more valuable than the other, but they needed both. But the man had the life. So in the ancient world a father was the giver of life, the generator of all things that were living Fathers. Also in the ancient world they were protectors. They were the ones that oversaw the whole tribe and the whole village. This was in the days of the patriarch, not the modern patriarch, which gets a bad rap, but in the ancient world the patriarch was like an incredibly important role. The father oversaw the whole household, the whole village, the whole neighborhood. His job was to protect and to provide for the whole household. Everybody's safety, security, well-being was his responsibility. So his job was to provide or, if you will, to give bread to everybody. That was the role of the father. This is a piece of bread, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1:And Jesus calls God a father, meaning he's the protector, he's the one overseeing this whole tribal, this cosmic village. He's the one who'll provide your wellbeing, is his responsibility. There's someone watching out for us, someone will provide for us, someone that has their eyes on us. It's a deeply relational and personal name for this otherwise transcendent God. Can you already see like, oh, this is like. This is not some distant God who's far away, he's a father. Now, many of us might have a bad relationship with our father, but this is a good father, who provides for cares for, has eyes.
Speaker 1:By the way, in the ancient world, to be fatherless was a tragedy Because no one watched out for you. No one looked out for you, no one provided for you, no one took care of your well-being. You had no one to watch out for. So that's why, in Israel's ethics, to take care of the fatherless was extremely important, and it should be ours today. Today, we should look out for those who don't have a father, because without a father and, of course, a mother, they're often left to fend for themselves. And so God is saying that he's a father, and deeply embedded in Israel's ethics was this idea of taking care of the fatherless.
Speaker 1:So what does it mean that God's a father? Well, it means, no matter where you come from, what kind of family you have your upbringing. You are not fatherless. There's somebody who knows your name, who knows everything about you and who promises to provide for you, to care for you, to be with you. Your well-being is his responsibility. You belong, you belong to a family. Now, you might have days where you feel like I just don't know if I do, and I've had those days where I'm just telling you you belong to the family of God and you have a father.
Speaker 1:Jesus calls God the father, this giver of life, this provider, protector, the one who sustains, the one, who is the one who's your. It's his responsibility, your well-being is his responsibility, and Jesus calls him father. I love it, too, that Jesus uses this, this old Hebrew word for for father. He calls him Abba, and we don't really have a similar word. Maybe the closest in English is like dad or papa. It's a deeply intimate name that a young kid would call their dad. He calls him Abba and, by the way, I'll just say this now, it's not because God the Father gave birth to Jesus, it's not that at all. It's a relational name. But he calls him Abba because he views him as a father.
Speaker 1:I love it when my kids call me dad. When they were younger they'd call me daddy and they don't anymore, and I'm still angry about it, but I love it. They're like dad, dad, I love hearing that sound because they need my help and I'm the father I will help them. So when I hear Dad, I'm like yes, yes, what do you need? In fact, just two years ago, my daughters were at home it was me and the girls and they're like Dad, dad, we need you. I'm here, what can I do for you? I'm like can we go to Culver's to get some ice cream? I go yes, of course you have my permission. I grant you permission to go. You're welcome. They're like oh, awkwardly. They're like oh, we don't need your permission. We needed your money. Of course I will give you some money. How much do you need? No, I don't need anything and you don't have to invite me. It's fine, there's no problem, have fun. Girls, and I cried on my pillow that night Because I'm their father. I'm their dad and their well-being is my responsibility. I want to look after them, take care of them Mothers, too. I'm a father, I'm not a mother. I'm sure you mothers have the same kind of heart, because they're my kids and they call me dad. I love nothing more than having them call me dad.
Speaker 1:Jesus calls him Abba. Then you have the son. The son is in this story. It's Jesus who calls him father and the son Jesus says a number of times hey, if you want to know what God is like, if you want to see the father, look at me. So he's like saying to the people hey, if you want to know what the father is like, just watch what I do, what I say.
Speaker 1:This is radically a new idea in the ancient world, because in the ancient world you didn't know what the gods were like. They worshipped many gods. Gods were normal. No one knew what they were like because the gods lived far away. They didn't really care about you. They were capricious. They would kind of show up on occasion or their activities would sort of pour out overflow into our world and all hell would break loose and be just chaos.
Speaker 1:Read the ancient Greek stories or Roman mythology. It's wild, like you didn't know if you could trust the gods, if they were good or if they were angry at you and you didn't know. And so always embedded in most ancient people like this low grade or high grade anxiety Like what do the gods want of us? We don't even know what they're like. And this God sort of comes in Jesus like hey, if you want what I'm like, look at me Now.
Speaker 1:In this day in Israel there was a lot of Greek thinking happening. So the Greeks had come into this part of Israel and their influence was everywhere and the Greeks saw the gods as distant. They were spirit beings. They were not material beings, they were spirit beings and they never came into contact with the material world. They didn't really care about the material. And for a spirit being like the Greeks thought a God, to touch the material world was like it was gross. They would never touch the material creator world. So for a God to say, hey, I'm a God in the flesh and I'm going to show you what the father is like, so there's no more mystery, you can look at me and see what the father is like Unbelievable in this day and age. The Greeks could know about God or the gods. You could never know God intimately. How could you ever know God, he's God, or the gods? They're gods, they're powerful, they're doing other things.
Speaker 1:The great thinker CS Lewis says it this way. I love it. He says, hey, how could Hamlet and Shakespeare ever meet? How could they ever meet? You guys know who Shakespeare and Hamlet is. Okay, in case you don't, I'll say it this way Maybe, how could Harry Potter and JK Rowling ever meet? Okay, how could Scarlett O'Hara, one of the greatest literary characters of all time, ever meet Margaret Mitchell? How could they ever meet? Okay, fellas characters of all time ever meet margaret mitchell, how could they ever meet? Okay, fellas. Uh, how could, uh. How could uh jason bourne ever meet robert ludlum? Okay, or superman jerry siegel or katniss everdeen meet? Uh, what's her name? Collins, suzanne collins. How could the author of a book ever meet one of its characters unless the author did something to initiate the contact? So Lewis like, the only way that Shakespeare could ever meet Hamlet is if Shakespeare wrote himself into the story as one of the characters of Hamlet, and then Hamlet and Shakespeare could meet in the story.
Speaker 1:How could humans ever know God, the transcendent, the entirely other, this being non-being, unless that God came into our story as one of us to bridge this gap? Also, how could God ever know what it's like to be a human Unless God becomes a human? How could these gods ever relate to your pain, your heartbreak, your heartache, your discomfort, your loss, your grief, your sorrow. How could God ever know that unless this God became a human, who also suffered and was heartbroken and experienced loss and sadness and grief and rejection? Oh, now we're cooking with some gas. This God of the Christian knows what human suffering is like because this God became a human.
Speaker 1:John 1 says it this way. We heard it read by Richard In the beginning was the word. So, by the way, in John's gospel, the son is called the logos or the word. So in the beginning was the word and the word was with God. So here's Jesus In the beginning, though back here was the word. So in the beginning was the word and the word was with God. So here's Jesus in the beginning, though back here was the word the logos. This is what we call the son of God. Now the word was with God and the word was God. This is mind bending. It says, uh, and through him all things came into being. Nothing that was made has been made apart from the logos of God. So this logos of God created. So God created, through the logos of God, all the things that you see around him. And then John says this logos of God, this word of God comes into humanity as a person and is born as Jesus of Nazareth. So the logos, the word of God, has has been around forever, along with the Father and, as we'll see, into the Spirit. But then this part of God, this part that wants to know what it's like to be a human and to bridge the gap between humanity and divinity, this part of God becomes a human in Jesus. So Jesus of Nazareth and by the way, is resurrected as a human and is now at the right hand of God, the Father. So you have the Father and the Son and the Spirit kind of again in this beautiful vision of the Trinity. And in the Trinity now exists a human being. So the Logos takes on flesh. And when the Logos goes back to be with God, he doesn't leave the body of Jesus. No, the body goes with him. He's the incarnate Son. The Logos goes back to be with God. He doesn't leave the body of Jesus. No, the body goes with him. He's the incarnate son, the Logos of God. And now you have a human being in the person of the Trinity. It's beautiful. So the father now and the spirit know what it's like to be a human being to suffer and to die On the cross? Was God suffering In the beginning? Was the Logos creating? By the way, the Old Testament doesn't have a whole bunch of like explicit language about the Trinity, but you see hints of it. You see like glimmers of Trinitarian kinds of ideas and the plurality of God in complex ways. I don't have time to unpack it now, but there's all kinds of images and it's as though, like, the lights are kind of dim and then in Jesus you're like, oh, maybe that's what's going on back here. There's all kinds of images of God. God is called Elohim, it's like a plural name for God. Abraham has a visitor, god visits him. It's three people. It's like, oh, that's interesting. There's all kinds of beautiful imagery about God being this plurality in the Old Testament. But yeah, you can see it kind of in Jesus, and this logos enters into humanity as the son, as Jesus, and so Jesus says, hey, I'm the father of one. If you want to see God, look at me, the father, look at me. No one has seen God, john writes, except through Jesus. So Jesus, the sheerest, purest, deepest, most vivid image and window into the heart of God, which means this most vivid image and window into the heart of God, which means this your vision of God should be at least as good and as beautiful and as kind as Jesus. There's no God hiding behind in Jesus's back. God is fully embodied in Jesus. So you're like, what does God like? Read Jesus stories, and how does he talk, how does he treat people, how does he relate to the poor and the broken and the women and these kinds of things? Okay, I got a boogie. Okay, so this is the son, by the way, the crucified and resurrected son too, by the way. And then the spirit which hovers over the waters in Genesis 1, the spirit of God. Why does it say in Genesis one, the spirit of God? Why doesn't it say that God is the spirit of God? And in the Hebrew story, it's the personal presence of God in the Hebrew story, and it's the thing that brings life and vibrance to the whole thing. So the word for uh, the word for spirit, by the way, is the word Ruach. Everyone say Ruach. Yeah, ruach means spirit, or wind, or breath. Everyone take a big, deep breath. Yeah, the breath, it's this invisible thing you breathe in, but it's empowering, it gives you life, it gives you energy, vitality, vibrance, but it's invisible, but it's powerful. Wind is the same way. Wind blows through the trees and you can see it. It's powerful and strong, but it's invisible. And it's the spirit, this wind, this breath of God that enlivens and it sort of brings life and vibrancy, electricity to all things. The thing that happens when a baby is first born. What's the first thing a baby does when it's born? And when you die, what's the last thing you do before you die? And this breath, this spirit, this wind goes back to God. Yeah, the spirit in Ezekiel hovers over this valley of dry bones and they're dead and they're dried, and then the spirit comes over them and brings them back to life and it resurrects this valley of dry bones. It's incredible. In Acts, chapter two, the spirit shows up as a fire and empowers the disciples to do all the things that Jesus did, and even greater things, and empowers them. And then Paul Paul writes it was the spirit of God that resurrects Jesus. So there you have it, god. And the Bible is called love. John says God is love and I lost my eraser. That's okay. So here's the most important thing about this whole thing that we call a trinity. This stuff is fine, but it's this that God is love. From the beginning of time the trinity has existed. This beautiful dance they call it perichoresis, many of these ancient writers this beautiful dance of the Trinity, the Father, son, spirit. It's relational, it's intimate, they know each other. There's vibrant life, there's beautiful, other-centered giving and receiving. All before anything was created, the Trinity existed. And if dancing is a weird image for you, think about like I don't know. I think about like I don't know. I think of like these three persons around this campfire, roasting marshmallows or something, beautiful and deep, intimate conversation. They all know each other. There's no hierarchy, there's no, you know, they share everything. There's no insecurity, they lack nothing. It's this beautiful, vibrant giving and taking and receiving, this beautiful relationship, and they all know each other so deeply and intimately well, which makes you think and wonder why did God create anything then? If, before all of time, god exists in this beautiful father-son spirit relationship, it's lacking nothing, they don't need anything, they don't need you, they don't need me, they don't need us to worship them, they're not missing anything, they're fine. Why create? Well, I think it's because love always creates. Going back to how babies are born, by the way, love always creates, but the best things in life are always shared. So I feel like the father son sort of have this beautiful dynamic relationship that they just had to share, and so they create the cosmos and you and me. Which means that the point of Christian faith is not so much affirming all these doctrines or believing all the right things those are fine. It isn't even about saying the right prayers or the right words. It's sharing in this beautifully vivid, vibrant Trinitarian life of the Father and the Son and the Spirit. They lack nothing and they're full of life, which means that your job, your day-to-day nine to five, whatever it is you do raising kids, teaching, being a lawyer, being an accountant, being a pastor, being a student all of these can be filled with the vibrant life of the Trinity. This life matters. We can have this life right here and right now, because you and I have been invited into the beautiful relationship of the Father and the Son and the Spirit. Central Lutheran Church. May you know the love of the Father, who takes responsibility for you, who calls you by name, who wants to provide for you and will make all things right again. May you know that beautiful love through the presence of the Son, jesus, on the cross, he refused to give up on humanity Like no, I'm not going to give up on this thing. I will dive into the suffering of humanity to save it. So may you know that love of the Father in Jesus, who then sends the Spirit to guide us, to share wisdom with us and to give us life and to resurrect the dead parts of us. May you know the beautiful love and the dance and the relationship of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
