May only the word of God be spoken, may only the word of God be heard, in the name of the Triune God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Good morning CHURCH! It is nice to be back in-person and it is nice to have our ZOOM parishioners with us also! They call this a hybrid. Today is the Sunday after the Day of the Pentecost – Pentecost is the celebration of the Day the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples and today is Trinity Sunday where we celebrate the Three Persons of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit! And we have a baptism!
Do you remember your baptism? I do not remember mine as my twin brother, Greg and I were baptized as infants – less than a year old. The Episcopal Church baptizes infants. Parents and Godparents make the commitment for the infant baptized. And we believe you only must be baptized once using the trinitarian formula. These words are quoted from the risen Jesus in the Great Commission; “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”[1] This is a direct reference to the three persons of the trinity. Priests are normally the baptizers unless it is an emergency, if a person is in critical condition and has not been baptized then anyone is authorized to baptize them using this trinitarian formula. How would you explain the Trinity, God in three persons to someone?
The Doctrine of the Holy Trinity is a very difficult doctrine to unpack in one sermon. Deacon John will tell you that he has probably preached more Trinity Sunday sermons on the Trinity than many of us. It is not an easy doctrine and it split the early church. First Century folks believed that the early Christians worship three Gods instead of one God because of this concept of God in three persons – the blessed trinity. The Trinity is a great mystery of our faith. It is a mystery we may never be able to explain. In one of my Trinity sermons, I compared the trinity to a triangle, equal sides, and angles but all needed for the whole to be a triangle. It was not a triangle without all three sides. You can even go so far as to compare the three parts of an apple to the Persons of the Trinity. The skin is God the Father because God the Father protects us. The flesh is like God the Son because Jesus Christ took on human flesh. The seeds are like God the Holy Spirit because God the Holy Spirit helps us grow.[2]
I wonder if we could look at the Holy Trinity differently. What if we view the three persons of the trinity based on the way we experience God, like the disciples did. The first – God the Father, would be God beyond us, basically meaning God transcendent or God the other worldly. The second, God the Son, would be God among us or immanent meaning God beside us. And thirdly, God the Holy Spirit, would be God within us. So, again these elements are God beyond us, God among us, and God within us!
In today’s Epistle lesson from Romans Chapter 8, verse 14 is the most important. “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.” And our baptism is our being adopted by God as children of God – and members of Christ’s body, the Church, and we are the inheritors of the Kingdom of God. Baptism is a sacrament not magic. The purpose of a sacrament is to make us aware of a truth that is not self-evident so that we might benefit from it. Sacraments are symbolic, ritual acts of revelation. A sacramental action is intended to make a person who is not aware of its presence ----aware. When this invisible experience is realized, or made real, that is a sacrament. It is a point of connection between the invisible and the visible. It is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.
The experience, the truth that holy baptism reveals to us has to do with God and God’s love for us. Baptism makes us aware that God loves each and every one of us with a love that is undeserved, unconditional, and unending. There is nothing we can do to earn or gain that love for ourselves or anyone else. The baptized person does not become the subject of God’s love, but rather we become aware of a love that we would not otherwise be able to appreciate or to benefit from. From today’s Gospel lesson we get probably the most popular verse in scripture. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16).
Remember that God’s love and salvation are not earned but are offered as a gift. It is a very precious gift. In fact, so precious that it calls for a response. In the baptism of an infant that response takes the form of joy, gratitude, and commitment offered by parents, godparents, and the entire Christian Community. The child’s mature response will come later, but it begins in the earliest years through a child’s joy, wonder and awe, which appear naturally as a child experiences the natural world, experiences the arts, and participates in ritual, especially communion. As we go through this experiential journey together, we each have something to learn from each other. Godparents encourage their godchildren to grow out of childness, and the godchildren encourage us, Godparents, to be more child-like.[3]
Shaun and Simran – when you were born and when Jay was born you all became part of the Sinha family. When you are baptized you became part of a much bigger family! Baptism is God’s way of adopting us as God’s own children. We become part of the very family of God, the church. And all baptized people become our sisters and brothers! By our baptism, we all belong to each other and to God. Let us make Jay Kumar part of a bigger family. AMEN.
Accessed 5/29/2021. [3] Holy Baptism: A Guide for Parents and Godparents.
Bibliography
The New Interpreter's Bible: General Articles & Introduction, Commentary, & Reflections for each Book of the Bible, Including the Apocryphal Deuterocanonical Books. New Interpreter's Bible. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994; 2004.
Brown, Raymond Edward. An Introduction to the New Testament. Anchor Bible Reference Library. 1st ed. New York: Doubleday, 1997.
Cook, Stephen L., Stephen L. Cook, Stephen L. Cook, Ruthanna Hooke, David Robert Adams, et al. Feasting on the Word. 1st ed. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009.
Markham, Ian S. Understanding Christian Doctrine. Malden, ME. Blackwell Publishing 2008
O'Day, Gail R. and David Peterson. The Access Bible: New Revised Standard Version, with the Apocryphal Deuterocanonical Books. New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
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