‘O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is thy name in all the earth.’

+INJ+

Therefore it is written: ‘Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.’

For indeed, the end has come. For this reason the Lord was born, for this reason He has come into the world, that He might take the heathen as His inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession. That all the kingdoms of the earth, which He was offered by the devil upon the high summit might indeed be His, yet not through obeisance to the pleasure of the Accuser, but obedience to the will of Father, that all things may be in subjection to him, that God may be all in all.

Trinity Sunday is an end. Certainly it is the end of a long series of solemn feasts and celebrations that the Christian race celebrates throughout the year, starting with the holy season of Advent. For all the Church’s holy times and days observe exactly one thing: the coming of the Son at the command of the Father to gather all the world to Himself, and so deliver up the kingdom to God.

During Advent, we await the fulfillment of the promise established by the ancient prophets, that God would establish a king upon the throne of David, a greater prophet from among us. On Christmas, the Feast of the Nativity, we witness the birth of the Christ from the flesh of Mary.

On Epiphany, we see the acknowledgment of the universal and unlimited imperium and power of the Lord by the gentiles, that His kingdom will have no end.

With Lent, we see the labors of Jesus, His combat with the devil and all the world, with the heathen kings and rulers and unbelieving Jews.

On Good Friday we kneel before the cross of His sacrifice, the death of God’s saint, precious in the sight of the Lord, by which his enemies are put beneath his feet, even the last enemy, death.

With Holy Saturday, we wait as the Lord declares His victory in the infernal places, that none among the dead might be without hope; and on the Most Holy Feast of the Resurrection, we see the triumph of the Second Adam over sin, death, and hell; against all condemnation and rebellion and evil; that man might be glorified in Christ.

Now Pentecost has passed, when the Spirit shall come and proclaim the liberation of all flesh from the shackles of the Satanic prince to every tribe and tongue and nation.

Now it is the Feast of the Holy Trinity, the end and completion of all such festivals. Though something about it seems a bit odd. Every other Feast seems to celebrate an event, either in the life of Christ, or in the life of Christ’s body, the Church.

Yet today seems to celebrate not an event, but a doctrine; in fact, the most incomprehensible and unattainable of all doctrines: the mystery of the Divine Majesty, the Ever Blessed Trinity.

But I tell you, if we think this way, we think wrongly. For if Christmas and Easter and Pentecost are events in time of the life of Christ, now the Trinity is the eternal, ever-present happening toward which all life in Christ is destined. Indeed the Trinity is an end: it is the purpose and end and goal of all creation; it is the final cause and ultimate reason of all of our Lord’s work.

For by the word of the prophets, we are taught how man was made as the head and pinnacle of all creation, and how by Adam’s sin, man was divorced from God, and creation by him.

Yet in the Incarnation, God and man are again made one, even in a yet more perfect way, by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary. The divine and human natures are united to one another, even as the two have become one flesh, even as justice and peace kiss one another. For in Christ’s own body, the veil of the temple has been removed, and the dwelling place of God is with man.

The Christ comes preaching, that He and the Father are one, and prays that we may be one, as they are one.

The souls of all mankind are united together as they are together united to the person of Jesus through the mystery and wonder of the Holy Baptism, that united to a death like his, we too might have a resurrection like his.

Now in the miracle of the Eucharist, His body and blood, which was pierced and poured out upon the cross, and which is raised and glorified by the Father, is made our own, that we might be made His own, that we indeed be vines of His branch, abiding in him as he abides in us, having now a life hidden in Christ, in His very body, which is the fullness of him who fills all in all. For it is written: ‘whoever eats my body and drinks my blood dwells in me, and I in him.’

Then by the Ascension, our own human nature, united to the humanity of Christ, rises before the Godhead, and lives forevermore within it. And if man, who is the head and pinnacle of all creation now has received the deity in the Lord Jesus, by the indwelling of the Spirit, and has entered into the eternal being of the Father, so then has all the world with him.

For this reason, it is written that every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, ‘To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!’

For this is the Love of God, that even as God is three persons, yet in Love, always and eternally one; so the world whom God so loved, is not merely beloved by an act of divine will, but is indeed made one with the Father through the flesh of Christ by the communion of the Holy Spirit. The very love that unites the three persons of the Trinity now unites the Created, the Begotten, and the Unbegotten, even as it receives the fealty of all things in heaven, and upon the earth, and in the depths of hell.

This then, is the eternal event of the Trinity, which is the truth and only reality of God. This, then, is the Catholic faith, entrusted once and forevermore to the Christian race, born of the flesh of the Lord, from the foundation of the world.

Apart from unity of the Trinity, there is no salvation, for apart from the life of the Triune God, there is no life at all.

It is this One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic faith which is born within the womb of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, the very body of Christ, within whom we live and move and have our being, by whom all things were made, who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven. For indeed, one of the Trinity died for us, that the Son might be glorified in the Father, that all creation might be made His footstool;

That you and I, dear Christian, might dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

‘O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is thy name in all the earth.’

+INJ+

Preached by Pastor Fields

Sermon Texts: Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31; Acts 2:14a, 22-36; John 8:48-59.