06/03/2026
Trinity Sunday, May 31st 2026, Father Phillips Bradford Johnson, Rector
“How can these things be?”
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen
“How can these things be?” we ask ourselves. War, crime, injustice, corruption, greed, the increasing polarization of society, and more. The Seven Deadly Sins are much in evidence, are they not? How can a God of love allow such a broken and cruel world? He wrote His laws on the tablets of Moses AND on our hearts, yet our hearts cannot be forcibly softened by any laws, including God’s, because we have free will.
In today’s Gospel reading we have a man, Nicodemus, who is frustrated with Our Lord’s insistence that he, Nicodemus, must be “born again,”--- that is, that he accept Jesus as Lord and Savior and be baptized---at first misunderstands and asks how can “enter the second time into his mother’s womb.” We must note that Nicodemus, as he was a member of the Sanhedrin, only dared to visit Jesus at night---under the cover of darkness--- thus he is called “The Night Disciple.” A troubled man, a frustrated man; thus his famous question above. He came very close to accepting Christ but couldn’t quite get there. When the Sanhedrin demanded the arrest and ex*****on of Our Lord, Nicodemus tried, weakly, to stop it: he asked, “Does our law judge any man before it hears him?” After the Crucifixion, he assisted Joseph of Arimathea with the burial of Christ, but he was too late: he had spurned the friendship offered by Christ.
Today, on Trinity Sunday, you and I ask this same question, of the Holy Trinity: “How can these things be?” First we must acknowledge that the word “Trinity” is not explicitly found in the Bible; yet the concept of it is woven throughout the New Testament, as in the Great Commission at the very end of Matthew’s Gospel. Now over the 4th century, the doctrine, or dogma, of the Trinity was gradually established, from the First Council of Nicaea in 325, through the First Council of Constantinople in 381. As a dogma, acceptance of it is not optional. To not accept it is to not be Christian. That’s easy to say; since its formation, the explanation of it has frustrated---sometimes privately, sometimes publicly---theologians, philosophers, and pastors, and the laity.+ St, Augustine of Hippo, the “go-to guy” for many well-measured quotations, said “He who denies the Trinity loses his soul; he who tries to explain the Trinity loses his mind.” Gerhard Tersteegen, a German Reformed lay preacher, said “A God understood, a God comprehended, is no God.” Eugene Peterson, an American Presbyterian minister, said “The Trinity is a mystery in which we are given to understand that we will never know all there is of God.” That is, so much for the belief of some that once in heaven, we will know everything there is to know. And Martin Luther, a brave man who said many good things, believed that the Trinity is a divine mystery to be adored rather than a puzzle to be solved. That is, just let it go, and stop trying to pe*****te the divine mysteries, to jimmy the divine safe, as were, with our limited minds.
These three men, I feel, give us solid advice on how to try to approach the mysteries of Holy Trinity: don’t even try! The Athanasian Creed is, I feel as good of an attempt at analysis as any, although those of you who know it are probably thankful that it is not part of the regular Sunday liturgy. However, any search for “answers” to the composition, purpose, and roles of Holy Trinity will yield nothing. It is so majestic, so powerful, so glorious and, most important to us, so loving, that probing by our human minds will only lead to more and more questions, in a process somewhat like dealing with a set of Chinese boxes: it goes on and on, with each box fits inside the next larger one, as in a complex situation. And so our answer to the question “How can these things be” must be, “Because God says so.” Yet we must also note that God---the Trinity--- did not will Himself into existence; as St. Gregory of Nazianzus said, “God always was, and always is, and always will be.” And as everything is in the present to God---to the Trinity---let’s just say “God is,” and be thankful.
And so now unto God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost be ascribed as is most justly due: all might, majesty, dominion, power, and glory: henceforth and forevermore, AMEN
