One Eternal Christ; For You

Sermon Texts: Athanasian Creed, Matthew 28:20, Genesis 1:1-2:4

The Sunday is Trinity Sunday, so the Athanasian Creed is a fixture. We say it responsively, and the congregational response isn’t clear enough, so I’m sorry it isn’t on the recording. Although we had a new reader this morning who did a very good job with a very long reading in that Old Testament lesson.

So, the seed idea for this Sermon comes Professor Richard Beck. He is a prof at Abilene Christian, and I’ve been reading him for what seems like forever. I’d say that all his books are on my shelf, but most of them are in my Kindle along with all the underlines (145 over 4 books, the ones in the physical books I don’t have a count on.). Now we diverge in quite significant ways. He I think would still call himself a Progressive Christian, while I’m a confessional Lutheran. The difference is that most people who would use that label do so to avoid thinking. Dr. Beck is the opposite. You occasionally find these people who are close enough to you that you can think along with them fruitfully, but they are different enough to be challenging. That has been Dr. Beck to me. Anyway, in his most recent book – The Book of Love – he starts out with a couple of very powerful ideas.

The first you find embedded in the first part of this sermon that rests on the Old Testament lesson. The devil, the world and our sinful nature present us with an ontology of death. Life is the temporary accident. The Bible is the book of an ontology of life. Death is the temporary thing. Because in the beginning God is. And in the end, God is. That is the point of the first part of the Athanasian Creed. Father, Son and Holy Spirit eternal and coequal.

The second idea from Dr. Beck is that God – best seen in Jesus Christ – is for us. You can’t lose His love. The second part of the Athanasian creed presents this to us. So that by the time we get to those end statements on the judgement, we already know that the judge is in our corner. Which means we are free to go embrace and ontology and a teleology of life. We can go live it. Because God is for us.

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Axiom not Analogy

You either loved geometry or you hated it. We all learned Euclidean geometry which has five axioms. And yes, I’m hurting people’s heads, sorry, I promise this goes somewhere on a Trinity Sunday. An Axiom is just something that is or at least is taken as something that is. In Euclidean geometry the famous axiom is that parallel lines never cross. Or at least that is the simple rendering of it. And then you learn a bit about non-Euclidean geometry, usually polar. Because lines of longitude are parallel, but they meet at the poles. Euclidean geometry you could say is a limit case. It holds in the common sense human scale, but if you get really big or really small that axiom breaks. It is not a universal one. Parallel lines can cross. And all the rest of Euclidean geometry is built on the foundation stones of those axioms.

Many Trinity Sunday attempts are attempts at analogy. You know them all I’m sure: St. Patrick’s clover, The Sun (which is actually perfectly Arian), the apple (which has its own CPH book that I remember loving as a kid, and so is probably the seed of my bad theology). These are all attempts at an analogy for the Trinity itself. And they are all ultimately failures. Because the Trinity is not something you can explain. It is. If you could explain it, it would not be God. Which is more the point of my analogy with geometry. The Trinity is an axiom. Now the biggest difference between Euclid’s axioms and The Trinity is that Euclid’s were asserted from nature. You could look at the world and understand that parallel lines don’t cross. Or the first one, given two points there is a straight line that connects them. These are known by observation. The Trinity is known by revelation. The God who is revealed himself to be this way.

Now this revelation in the history of the Bible was progressive. The Patriarch’s knew God simply as God Almighty (Genesis 17:1). Moses receives “the name” – often rendered Yahweh – which the Hebrews refused to pronounce and wrote in LORD. Your bibles will have LORD all capitalized when that name appears. (Exodus 6:3). Then Jesus talks about Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). Now we would say that Father, Son and Spirit with the gift of hindsight make clear appearances in the Old Testament. For example Genesis 1:1-2 with God and the Spirit of God. Or the three men who visit Abraham (Genesis 18). The LORD is a name of the unity of the Godhead. The persons become known through interaction and revelation. Jesus came to reveal the Father (John 1:8, John 14:9, Matthew 11:27). The Holy Spirit testifies to the Son (John 15:26). And it is this revelation of Jesus that is the cornerstone planted. Christ himself is the foundation that everything is built on. If Christ is not raised from the dead, our faith is in vain. If this axiom does not hold, the entire edifice might be pretty like Euclidean geometry, but not eternally true, only locally true. And if God is only locally true, then He isn’t God.

And this is what the Athanasian Creed does so well for me. It is simply the best statement of what is. “The Catholic Faith is this…”. The creeds are the axioms of the faith. If you proved one of them wrong, the entire edifice falls. If you prove something in them wrong, you have proved Christ a liar. And CS Lewis’ trilemma – Liar, Lunatic or LORD – kicks in. It’s a good thing people have been trying to disprove them for 1800 years. They have been rejected – there are always people who will say “this is a hard teaching, who can accept it (John 6:60).” – but disproven? No. “This is the Catholic Faith, whoever does not believe it faithfully and firmly cannot be saved.” The creeds are not analogies or proofs. The creeds are proclamations. This is God. This is The Faith. They are to be believed as foundations for eternal life.

Theology and Doxology

It’s a saying that has been attributed to many people – “all theology ends in doxology.” My guess is that it is a common refrain of people who have read Romans 7 through 11. Paul struggles for the theology of gentile inclusion, Jewish seeming exclusion and what comes to be called the doctrine of election. And his entire struggle ends with “O, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God…for from him and through him and to him are all things.”

Trinity Sunday always brings that thought back to me because Trinity Sunday is the most dogmatic day in the church year. It is a day given over to the culmination of a theological project. “Whoever desires to be saved must, above all, hold the catholic faith…and the catholic faith is this.” The first 300 years post the apostles was the church struggling to define its belief. It had faith. That is the gift of the Holy Spirit. But it also desired some understanding, faith seeking understanding. That is the theological project. That is the point of doctrine. This is what we believe, teach and confess. We live or maybe I should say have lived in a time the has devalued theology. It has done that in two ways. Crudely it has often just dismissed doctrine as unnecessary divisions. “Deeds not creeds” which ultimately turns the faith in ethics. That is the long path toward Mohammed, or Paul would have said the Judaizers. Both will tell you the law as a means of salvation. There has also been a more subtle form of devaluing theology. Using it not as faith seeking to understand the God from whom we came, in whom we exists and to whom we shall return. But using theology as a means of power or maybe I should say anti-power as in our day it has been used to deconstruct and destroy order. This is the path to nihilism. The law won’t save you and nothing will save you. You are alone in the universe.

The entire purpose of theology as properly understood has been to understand the narrow way between those two conclusions – salvation by the law or meaninglessness. Now giving due to the nihilists, all theology is trying to put into words what is ultimately transcendent. It is an impossible task. It is a walking on Holy Ground. And as Moses was told about walking on Holy Ground, take your shoes off. Keep the dirt and grass of creation next to your skin. Because all understanding of God in words is by analogy. And all analogy fails at some point. The better analogies are those you can feel. That Athanasian creed uses analogies like majesty, infinite and eternal. If you have three majesties, you don’t really have one. The Godhead is majesty coeternal. There is only one eternal. Mathematicians can discern larger and smaller infinities, but looking at the night sky gives you one.

Also giving due to the legalists, if you don’t require something you don’t really know anything. The unknown God is a terrible monster. You don’t know if He is there is kill and devour you, or to save you. And any God who makes himself known reveals something about his ways. And if they are the ways of God, they should also be the ways of His creations. The Athanasian creed moves on from the majesty, infinite and eternal – all of which could be an unknown God. Aristotle comes to some similar conclusions without knowing God. The Athanasian creed also tells us “it is also necessary for everlasting salvation that one faithfully believe the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.” God has revealed himself in man. And not just man in general, but a man, a particular man – Jesus. The ways of God are revealed to us in Jesus “who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell, and rose again the third day from the dead.” The God we worship is one who saves by grace, one who suffers, and one who works by death and resurrection. You don’t get more gritty dirt than a grave, or one who comes out of it.

The theology is necessary because the Spirit does lead us into truth, and the theology is the record of that. The errors never really go away. They always come back and the church can take out the record and say “you are here.” But the theology also at some point get put down and join the choir. “Praise God from whom all blessings flow…”

Sound Words

Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you. – 2 Tim. 1:13-14

The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod might be the only church that still follows the Trinity Sunday practice of reciting the Athanasian Creed. I’ve never run across it anywhere else and a good number of ministers outside of the LCMS I’ve mentioned it to have never heard of the creed itself. Part of my fascination was simply the language. As a geeky kid, once a year saying something like “the Father infinite, the Son infinite and the Holy Spirit infinite” was an impossible invitation to mystery. I imagine every kid who ever liked math and ran across the Athanasian creed was invited to ponder the infinite. And how I can give you a perfectly valid proof that is completely understandable in simple language that one infinity is bigger than another infinity. (Observe that the numbers 1, 2, 3… and so on are infinite. Observe that 1.1, 1.2, 1.3…and so on are also infinite. The 2^nd infinity is bigger than the first. And you can intuitively grasp that. But what the hell does it mean that one infinity is bigger than another infinity?) “And yet there are not three infinities, but one infinite.” There are three infinite persons, but there is only one infinite God.

It is not meant to be understood. If we could understand it, it wouldn’t be God. He is meant to be adored.

And yet in our hearts we have a desire for understanding. The apostle Paul certainly understood that. “That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and may share in his sufferings…(Philippians 3:10).” It is this tension that makes Paul’s letters still sing today. Whatever he was facing he was constantly searching for a way to describe what God is and what he is doing for His people. The way of Love: “I will show you a still more excellent way. If I speak in tongues of men and of angles, buy have not love…(1 Cor 13).” The mystery of God’s election and Israel: “For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all. Oh the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God…(Romans 11:32-33).” The way of a man and a woman: “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the Church…(Ephesians 5:32).” As Paul more or less rightly bragged, “if anyone has reason to boast, I have more (2 Cor 11, Phil 3).” Yet Paul reaching to know God, always returned to adoration. All theology ends in doxology. He is meant to be adored.

So what we have in the creeds, and I would say especially in the Athanasian Creed, is a sound pattern of words. And in a religion where one infinite person of the Trinity is sometimes called “The Word of God,” words are important. There is a reason Satan is always changing the definitions of words, attempting to confuse things that God made plain. The creeds are a sound pattern of words. When Satan, the World or our own flesh want to pull some tricky business with us, the creeds are a light in a dark place. When our brains are tired of thinking, the creeds guard the good deposit given to us. They are not The Faith. They are not the love in Christ Jesus. They are not even the Holy Spirit that dwells within. These things – faith, love, Spirit – are more important. But faith, love and even the Spirit express themselves in words. And these are a pattern of sound words.

When our own words fail us, the Scriptures promise that the Spirit intercedes. Think of the creeds as part of that intercession. A pattern of sound words leading us back to adoration. A theology in short, so that we can sing the doxology. Praise God from whom all blessing flow. Including words…like “this is the catholic faith.”

Adoration

Having lived most of my life east of the Mississippi and north of the Mason-Dixon line, when you talked about nature you were talking about two things: the color green and the gentle rolling hills. That can be and is beautiful, but it is all on a human scale. Even in Pittsburgh, at the confluence of two mighty rivers and the foothills of the Appalachians, Mt. Washington is scaled by the mechanical inclines which used to ferry workers daily to the mills before they became merely for tourists. Around 1100 feet is the highest elevation. The contrast with Arizona or the West is part of this meditation. I’m sure you eventually get used to it and it recedes into the background, but beautiful is not the word I’d use. I’d use adoration. The mountains are not on human scale. Unless you became a hermit like St. Anthony, you would not live at the top of the mountains. As we drove to Las Vegas earlier this year I had a hard time keeping my jaw up. Around every turn was a staggering view. A lonely trail of asphalt with a few ants crawling along it dwarfed by the immensity of nature, untamed and unbothered by the speck speeding through it. Likewise for about 10 mins every morning and 10 mins in the evening something strange happens in the valley. The light has not fully gone away or come up. The sun hides behind the mountains casting their shadow over the entire valley. In the east there was always “the gloaming”, but this is different. The browns all move a shade or two darker yet still radiate.

The Trinity is a doctrine that we confess. And as with all doctrines it is important. As the Athanasian creed we will confess this week will say, “Whoever desires to be saved must, above all, hold the catholic faith…and the catholic faith is this.” But there are doctrines which can be understood. For example I’d argue that the Providence of God can be understood. “God has given me my clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and home…and still takes care of them.” Even the pagans had some inkling of this calling Odin the All-Father or maybe more modern the Life of Julia with the government always present to supply. (Although I might argue that Odin was probably a healthier expectation of providence.) These doctrines are like those Eastern scenes. They are on a human scale. So much that we occasionally think humans can take God’s place entirely. But the doctrine of the Trinity is not something to be understood. It is something to be adored.

The second the human starts throwing around words like infinite, eternal, uncreated, almighty the only comparison we have are the mountains. Who if they even notice us would do so merely in humor. Oh, we can reduce one or two with strip mines, but not the Rockies. Not even the foothills. Pondering them is thinking about eternity and how it moves. Scientists will tell us at one time they were flat. The tectonic plates rammed into each other and threw them up. Ok, if you say so. But in all of recorded history, they’ve moved nary a centimeter.

Some doctrines can only be adored. We see them and stagger. The fullness of the Trinity is beyond us. Yet they have chosen to dwell with us, Father, Son and Spirit. They have chosen to share their eternal life with us, whatever that really means. I simply believe it and adore.

Solid Spiritual Words

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Text: The Athanasian Creed

It was Trinity Sunday. Probably the one Sunday a year where I don’t have a very specific biblical text as the basis of the Sermon. That’s ok, because the Creeds in the Lutheran tradition are part of the Confessions, sometimes called the symbols. The Bible is the Norming Norm, but the Confessions are the Normed Norm. The creeds are meaningful texts for preaching because they are faithful expressions of the faith. They are norms of doctrine and life which have been normed by the Scriptures.

In this case I had a specific teaching I wanted to cover: the faith which believes vs. the faith which is believed. Then I wanted to think a bit what it means to ponder the faith which is believed. The creeds point at that Holy Spirit given stuff – the faith which believes – while giving us sound Spiritual words to talk about the faith which is believed. Call it a teaching with an invitation to meditation on the unity of the Trinity.

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From, To, and In the Love of God

Text: Athanasian Creed, Texts of the Day (all in the worship folder)

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The Sunday after Pentecost is always set aside as Trinity Sunday. And the key piece of Trinity Sunday worship is the Athanasian Creed. Creeds can unfortunately be turned into dead letters. Something read or looked at, but not pondered within one’s heart. Not a symbol of a living faith. When they are dead letters they turn into checklists of mental assent or legalisms or even worse esotericism. What this sermon attempts to do is show them as invitations. “This is the catholic faith”. When you hear/say them as that, they become deadly practical. They help us remember what this sermon attempts to bring back.

Note: Here is the “funny” that the sermon starts off describing.

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Godhead, Person, Incarnation

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Text: Athanasian Creed (https://hymnary.org/hymn/LSB2006/319) Link has the versified text we used and the sermon references.

The creeds are the definition of the faith. They are the Faith which is believed. The Athanasian Creed, of the three great ones of the Western Church, is a masterful presentation of what we know. All of it can be tied to revelation, but the creeds presentation moves from those things which might be available to gently assisted reason to the more concrete revealed reality. The creed uses the names Father, Son and Spirit, but it starts out more philosophical with what might be call the attributes of God, shared by the Godhead in unity. The Christian Faith attributes these to the God of the Bible, but honestly many of these things are the god of classical theism. The second part of the creed moves into deeper revelation. It confesses and instructs how that God has revealed himself in three persons and how those persons are unique. The uniqueness that it wishes to establish is not hierarchy, but an order: Father Is, Son begotten, Spirit proceeding. The last part of this creed confesses the most concrete, but also the most controversial part of Christianity – the incarnation. In 40 verses it is an inexhaustible source of contemplation.

This sermon merely scratches the surface. It is more a Trinity Sunday encouragement to turn away from the confusion of our age and once again take up the solid definitions which are the gifts of ages of the church past.

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And Some Doubted…A Trinity Sunday Meditation on Faith, Fear and Doubt

Text: Matt 28:16-20, Athanasian Creed
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The start of that title is an interesting bit in Matthew 28:17. It is made all the more interesting because of the liturgical day of Trinity Sunday. On Trinity Sunday we confess the Athanasian Creed which is the most strident of the three historic creeds in its statements and sweep. In that way it mirrors the statements by Jesus right around that interesting bit. What this sermon does is examine the current fetish with doubt, point to the real trouble which is not doubt itself but fear, and look at the ways that both fear and doubt are calls to The Faith, expressed in clear form like the creeds, and to faithfulness. Lastly, it attempts to knock down one of the great fears behind clear statements of the faith, by recalling Jesus’ final words and Peter’s Pentecost sermon…Let all Israel know for certain…(read/listen to the sermon to hear the rest).

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A Specific God with A Specific Grace – Trinity Sunday

Biblical Text: John 8:48-59, Athanasian Creed
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I believe that Trinity Sunday, at least as we normally observe it, is the most offensive Sunday of the Church year. Let me explain that statement. The Sunday School answer – Jesus – is what we proclaim most Sundays. Scratching under that simple statement I would tend to hold that the three theological virtues (faith, hope and charity/love) take up a large amount of Sundays. Closely following or intertwined would be grace and the fruits of the Spirit. I’d like to say that in this I’m just following the texts of the day. And if I am being an orthodox preacher, I am saying what the texts have to say for the people gathered at St. Mark’s. So depending upon the texts you get some other subjects: prayer, discipleship, creation, eschatology (last things), and so on. And it is possible to be winsome and happy and non-offensive on most of those things. Likewise it is possible to be a complete a**. Traditionally the cross was the scandal – the cross was foolishness to the gentile and a scandal/stumbling block to Jews. It is still possible to hear and feel that scandal, but most people giving a preacher a listen don’t seem that shocked at the cross. (And I am aware that many would say that is because you must not be preaching the cross. I don’t think that is the case. If I have one cliche visible motion it is pointing at the cross on the altar like the Issenheim Altarpiece.) In a pluralistic society, the doctrine of God, the Trinity, becomes offensive. The bigger scandal isn’t the scandal of the cross where God dies. The bigger scandal is particularity. There is a God and this specifically is how He has revealed himself. And that specific revelation is the ground of truth and freedom.

Trinity Sunday, when marked by the reading of the Athanasian Creed, is one Sunday given over the the faith which is believed. While most Sundays include faith and some part of the (intellectual) faith which is believed, the emphasis is on encouragement in the faith which believes. The faith which believes, the work of the Spirit within us, is what saves. It does not come from us, but is given to us by grace. And that faith which believes is what grabs onto the cross like the old pictures and stained glass of the man holding onto the cross that is either going over a waterfall or is amidst the wind and waves. This is our stained glass window, but I’ve seen the same icon in other churches. That is a great visual of the faith which believes. Trinity Sunday is about the faith which is believed. It says boldly and clearly – “This is the God we believe in.”

In a plural society such clarity doesn’t leave room for “muddling on” or a soft syncretism blending a little of Buddha, a little of the great spirit, a little of gentle Jesus and a little of precious moments. That is why I think it is the most offensive. It is also very necessary. Quoting myself in the sermon, please excuse me, “A lowest common denominator faith eventually betrays both – producing a confusion of God, which is no god at all, and a smear of cheap grace, which is not grace.” Are you building on the rock or on sand? The creeds, like Jesus in the festival discourse in John 7-8, are a statement of the rock.

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