June 11, 2017 – Trinity Sunday Text: Matthew 28:16-20
Dear Friends in Christ,
There was a man fishing in a tub of water in his back yard. His neighbor saw him and said, “There are no fish in that tub. Why are you wasting your time like that?” “Yeah,” came the reply, “I know there are no fish in here, but it’s just so convenient.”
We’ve been trying to make life like that for generations: convenient. That is also what we do with our Christian faith. Make it convenient and acceptable and easy on the mind. We’ve reduced Christianity to a text message, a twitter, a tweet, and a toot. For an ever-increasing number of humans Christianity is nothing at all.
Today is Trinity Sunday. It’s what we believe as Christians. So we ask . . .
“IS OUR TRINITARIAN CHRISTIAN FAITH CONVENIENT?”
One thing becomes clear about our Trinitarian faith – Jesus is God’s Son and only Savior from sin. “Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshipped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.’” (v. 16-18)
Even after the resurrection and Jesus appearing to so many, there were still doubts. We have a belief in God – that’s convenient. But to believe in His Son as someone who died for me?
Man has always had these problems. Look at our Old Testament lesson where Moses writes, “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Gen. 6:5) Doesn’t that rattle our convenient thoughts that man is basically good? Moses adds, “And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.” (Gen. 6:6) You would think he was writing about 2017!
But then look at this. After the Flood we are told, “The Lord said in his heart, ‘I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” (Gen. 8:21) Man was in trouble. Man is still in trouble. Man in his arrogance hates God, rejects God, or else re-creates God to make man feel good – a convenient God.
Jesus said that, “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” He is either God or a sandwich short of a picnic.
Jesus did not come here to be our heavenly therapist. Wouldn’t that be convenient? He came to die an inconvenient death in our place. Man could not save himself, so the 2nd person of the Trinity obediently fulfilled the Father’s plan.
In our Epistle Peter declares, “This Jesus God raised up, and of that we are all witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.” (Acts 2:32-33)
Some years ago, a Pastor by the name of Timothy Smith wrote of a life experience that happened to a man by the name of Kenneth Gibble. He wrote:
“Kenneth Gibble spent his after school hours as a child in the feed mill where his dad worked. He loved playing games of pretend with the feed bags becoming in his imagination hills and valleys, boulders and dark caves to hide inside.
“Sometimes one of the workers would come into the warehouse where Kenneth was playing. He could spy on the worker without being seen. He was the sheriff waiting to spring out and arrest the outlaw.
“As Kenneth got older he began to realize that his pretend game of hiding in the feed mill represented his understanding of God. God is the one who stays hidden, spying on little children, watching them from a distance. ‘You had to be at least a little afraid of this God,’ Kenneth says, ‘because you could never get away from such a One. God could look inside your head and read every thought.’”
Pastor Smith then made this wise observation: “Many parents through the years have used similar tactics on their children. ‘God is watching you. He sees when you do something wrong.’”
Of course, we know differently. The only “distance” God put in our lives was that regarding hell. He removed it through Christ’s suffering and death at Calvary. He is not just watching us, He is interacting with us. He reveals His love and guidance through Scripture. He comes in Baptism and the Lord’s Supper to embrace us as His own. This is the Trinitarian Direction: Not an aloof God who is conveniently in our life at times and at other times is not. But – the Triune God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit ever present and leading us to our eternal home.
That comes through in these words of assurance, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (v. 20) And He is as we seek to fulfill the Great
Commission. And it won’t always be convenient in a world of self-worship and the questioning of moral absolutes. But the Lord is there, just like He was for Noah and his family after the flood. The Trinity – Father, Son, Holy Spirit love you and lead you to make a difference for the Lord’s Kingdom. Amen.