Holy Trinity (May 18, 2008) “Cling to the Trinity”

Text: Matthew 28.16-20

Last fall I taught a class in early church history for the Fuller Theological Seminary extension program. In that early church period, the doctrine of the Trinity looms large. The first four centuries of the church’s life were a time of developing doctrine—which means, in short, how do Christians think about and talk about what we believe. The doctrine of the Trinity is arguably the single most important and distinctive in Christian thought, and yet the word itself never appears in the Bible. Rather it is a word coined in the second century to try to describe what Christians had come to believe about God.

But if the word doesn’t appear in the Bible, the concept certainly does. We see it in our gospel lesson today, in the reference to “baptizing . . . in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”—clearly language that suggests the Holy Trinity.

But in fact this short passage teaches us much more about God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—and about our faith. Let’s see what we can learn by paying close attention.

“When the eleven disciples saw him,” Matthew writes, “they worshiped him; but some doubted.” Now that is an interesting phrase. Most translations, like this one, water it down a bit. Literally the Greek here could be translated, “They worshiped him, but they doubted”—not just “some doubted,” in other words, but all of them. They worshiped, but they doubted. What can it mean to say that the disciples, who were standing there in the very presence of the risen Christ, doubted? We are familiar with the story of doubting Thomas, but this is the only hint we have that the rest of the disciples may not have been quite so firm in their faith either!

It is comforting, is it not, to see this hesitancy even among the disciples! It demonstrates to us that it is possible to question and yet to worship. I have known so many people who didn’t want to have anything to do with the worship of God because they couldn’t satisfy their intellectual questions. They wanted to have it all arranged neatly ahead of time, like some cosmic prenuptial agreement.

But here, at the very climax of the gospel, we see that it is possible to worship God, even without fully understanding. Indeed, one might suggest that if the day were to come that we fully understood God, there wouldn’t be much left to worship. We worship precisely because we do not and cannot fully understand God. The poet Tennyson put it this way:

There is more faith in honest doubt,

Believe me, than in half the creeds.

“More faith in honest doubt.” The reason, you see, is that honest doubt means saying to God, “I do not understand, and yet I worship you.” “How precious to me are your thoughts, O God,” wrote the Psalmist. “How vast is the sum of them! I try to count them—they are more than the sand.”

In a sense, one reason the doctrine of the Trinity is so important is that it beyond our comprehension! It tries to make logical sense of a mystery that we will never understand. And yet we worship God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit! The phrase I love best in Athanasian Creed comes right in the first line, where it talks about the importance of clinging to this doctrine—notice it doesn’t say understanding it, but clinging to it. You see, there comes a point where understanding fails—and what is left is worship.

We had a fascinating conversation at Council Tuesday night about the natural disasters that have struck in various places in the world in recent days. We puzzled about how one can understand such things. The answer, of course, is that we can’t. God, we believe, created this world and called it “good”—and yet there are things in creation that don’t seem so good. We can’t understand them. We can only cling to the goodness and the mercy of God.

Then let’s consider the phrase, “baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Those words are very familiar, because that is the name in which we still baptize, the name in which we were all baptized. But there’s more here than just a bit of liturgical instruction!

Again a quick Greek lesson. The preposition here would be better translated “into” rather than “in.” “Baptize them into the name.” I think it is an important distinction for us. When we speak about doing something “in the name of” someone else, there is a sense of absence, isn’t there? The person isn’t present, so someone else acts in his name. But the phrase here in Matthew has a radical sense of God’s being present with us. It means something like “being put into the care of” God. To be baptized into the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is to be placed right into the hands of this God whom we name. It is, you might say, being thrust right into the very arms of God.

That’s what happened to you when you were baptized! You were put into the hands, into the arms, indeed, into the heart of God! That’s one big reason that we regard Holy Baptism so highly—it isn’t something done in the name of a distant, absent God, but it is being placed into God’s protection and care.

That knowledge was, for Martin Luther, the real key to dealing with the doubts that we talked about earlier. When Luther’s heart filled with questions and fears—and believe me, his questions and fears were at least as many as yours and mine—he countered those fears by remembering that he was baptized! When he would see visions of Satan tempting him, urging him to forsake the gospel, telling him that all he believed was a delusion, he would respond with great courage: “But I am baptized!” He was confident that in baptism he had been placed into the hands of God—and therefore he had no reason for fear! When you know you are safe in those hands, you are free to live, free to worship, free to serve—even in the midst of doubt and anxiety and questions.

Consider one more phrase. “Remember,” Jesus says, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” One more quick Greek lesson will make this come alive in a new way. The literal passage here says, “I am with you all days.” It isn’t just a vague and general “always,” but a very specific “all days:--Christ is with us every day.

Consider that! He is not only with us on the days when we feel spiritual and pious; he is with us every day. He is not only with us when our faith is strong; he is with us every day, and perhaps even more dramatically when we are weak. He is not only with us when life is fine; he is with us every day. With us when we screw up; with us when we run away; with us when we are afraid he is isn’t; with us when we wish he weren’t.

And how do we know? Because we’ve been baptized into his name—placed into the hands of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit! And because that is where we are, we know with certainty that he is with us every day, all days, even to the end of the age.

Johann Rambach, an 18^th century German pastor, put it this way:

Baptized into your name most holy,

O Father, Son and Holy Ghost,

I claim a place, though weak and lowly,

Among your seed, your chosen host.

Buried with Christ and dead to sin,

I have your Spirit now within.

And indeed, for us who have been baptized into the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, there is nothing that can keep us from him. He has claimed us. We are his. In the midst of doubt, in the midst of uncertainty, when we just can’t figure things out, when life seems impossible, we need not fear. He is with us. We are his.