HOLY, HOLY, HOLY, THE LORD GOD ALMIGHTY

On Sunday, June 7, St. Dunstan's completed a Triad of special worship services that began in Holy Week, extended fifty days to Pentecost and culminated in the celebration of the Holy Trinity. We would not celebrate the Trinity were it not for all that has gone before.

Christian faith admits that there is no direct reference to the Trinity in Holy Scripture. On the other hand, the Faith also stresses that there are three persons in scripture that all have the attributes of the divine, yet are not the same. These three persons have names: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. The concepts of all three have foundation in the Old Testament and full exposure in the New Testament. God is known as the Father of Israel. The Spirit is known as the essence of divine wisdom. And there is a mysterious figure sometimes referred to as "one like the Son of Man" --Daniel 7:13 or the exalted king--Psalm 72:1; 102:22, 110:1-2, who is also treated with reverence and has attributes reserved only for the divine.

In the formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity, the church had three challenges. The first was to tell the Roman Empire what it believed about God. The second was to honor and present the gift of divine redemption presented by this God for the whole human race. Thirdly, it had to distinguish itself on the one hand from the polytheists, who had no trouble believing that gods could take on human form, and the Jews, who would never consider any idea of three gods as a serious substitute for their "one God."

The result of over three hundred years of ferment and forment and the extensive efforts of the best and the brightest is summarized by what we call the Athenasian Creed--in our Prayer Book in the "Historical Documents" section. In very dense language, this Creed teaches that there is one God which exists eternally as three persons.

In retrospect, we discover that there are many things in the created order that reflect the fingerprints of the divine origin: an apple has three parts, the skin, the meat and the core. All are different, but they all make the apple. The sun has three parts, the star, the heat and the light which are separate but integral to the sun being the sun. Water, an essential element to life itself, comes to us as ice, fluid and vapor--but it's still water. A butterfly is both a caterpillar, a chrysalis and a butterfly--but the same creature.

Just as we find hints of the Trinity in nature, the Church tells us that there is a revelation of the Trinity in God's plan for our salvation. All three were involved in the creation, and all three are involved in our redemption.

Do we make too much of this? Actually, I think we make too little of it. The more we reflect upon the nature of God, the more we appreciate what it means to be a Christian.

Fr. Tom