Holy Trinity Sunday, May 30, A+D 2021
Our Savior’s and Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches                      
Hill City and Custer, South Dakota
God Loves the World               John 3:1-17

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

   On this Trinity Sunday, with all the talk of majesty and divinity, unity and distinction, it seems reasonable to ask:                                                                                                         What does the Holy Trinity mean for you and for me? 

   It means that God Himself lays down His life to redeem rebels who have forsaken Him. Even though they don't love Him, He loves them. And this is how He loves them: He dies their death; He receives His own wrath; He satisfies His own justice. Then, three days later, He rises out of that death, the Victor.  But not just Victor for Himself. He dies and rises so that those rebels, that is, us rebels, might also rise and live with Him forever.

   God did not die for an abstract idea.  The Son did not come because of God's generic love of people, the way we might love hiking, or Harleys or chocolate. No, our God deliberately laid down His life for specific individuals, for you, and you, and me.  A special, specific love for each one.  God has loved all, perfectly.  But He does not love everyone in exactly the same way. No parent loves all his children exactly the same. Parents love each child individually, specifically, according to the uniqueness of their personalities and relationships, according to the needs of each one. So, too, our God.

   His love is so great and precise that He knows the intimate details of each person, even counting the hairs on your head. And yet the list of specific individuals for whom He died includes the whole world, even those who reject Him. He knows us all, even our secret sins and evil desires. And, yet, while we were still sinners, rebels, bent on destroying Him, He loved us and laid down His life for us. Whoever believes in Him is drawn to Him by the hoisting up of that cruel cross, and there finds eternal life. There is no other way to approach God.  But in this way, the way of the Cross, there is not only access to God; there you find acceptance, special favor, and even adoption.  You are God’s own child, by faith in Jesus. 

   For us, the Holy Trinity means the rebellion is over, a rebellion which ended in the most unlikely of ways. The King sent His Son into the hands of the treacherous rebels, knowing full well what would happen.  God the Father allowed them to kill God the Son.  God the Holy Spirit, who has proceeded back and forth between Father and Son for eternity, leaves the Son as He dies on the cross.  The Sinless Son is forsaken as the Sinner, and so in Jesus Christ, the impossible happens: God dies.

   All the while, the Father held back the vast angelic armies that could have come and stopped the rebellion in an instant. The eternal Heir to the throne made himself brother to those rebels, joining in their humanity, and the thanks He received was to be killed.  And it was not just any death.  Rather Jesus died in our place, under the wrath of His Father. 

   But, in the great mystery of God’s love, Jesus submits to this willingly, with His mind set on the future joy that would come.  For His joy is to pass on His inheritance to His former rebel brothers and sisters.  Peace and restoration have come by the ultimate violence. The terms of Jesus’ surrender were absolute: total annihilation, unconditional, no negotiating. He met those terms in Himself, in His own body and soul.

   So the war is over. Peace reigns, for you. Who can understand the ways of God? No one.  They are beyond our understanding.  But we do find life in His mysterious ways. 

   The Holy Trinity is a profound mystery, often named the greatest mystery by theologians.  Everything, all the universe, all wisdom, all energy, all life, everything flows from God, who is both one undivided God, and also three in perfect eternal relationship, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  We cannot make sense of it according to our reason, but we can marvel and rejoice.  For from this nature of God flows the great miracle of love, love that brought the Son from His throne at the Father’s right hand, to become flesh, a human embryo in the womb of Mary.  The mystery of the Holy Trinity becomes our life, and our joy, as the eternal Son of God becomes a human being with a strange and specific mission in mind, a mission which reveals God’s love in the best way possible for us. 

   Rejoice in the merciful mystery of the Holy Trinity, His unfailing, steadfast love. There are thousands of signs of God’s mercy and steadfast love throughout the story of Israel and the Church.  But the ultimate image of God is the Son, nailed to a Roman cross, suffering to save His enemies. 

   And so the murderous rebels are declared sons, just as if they had never sinned, never rebelled. The murderers are rebels no longer, but instead are declared to be princes and princesses. Because the One they murdered is not dead, but lives.  He is the First-born, the elder Brother, the Advocate and Mediator, the Redeemer and Restorer. This most Holy Trinity - Father, Son, and Holy Ghost - has created, redeemed, and sanctified. Or, to say it more simply: He has loved.  He has loved you. 

   This Holy Trinity has rescued and recreated us in the waters of Holy Baptism, naming us as His own. We are no longer who we were. We have been drawn into His death and resurrection, born again of Water and Spirit, renamed and reclaimed into His name. Because we were born inheritors of the sin of Adam and Eve, we had to die.  And in Baptism, we have died! 

   For we were drowned, buried with Christ, in order to also rise with Him.  In Christ, and by Christ, we are the living, for we have His new life. We are the sons and daughters of the Most High, heirs of the living God of Life. This most Holy Trinity, God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, abides in us.

   God has demonstrated His love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, the good for the bad, the right for the wrong, God for the ungodly. He was lifted up on the cross for our salvation, and so we glory in that cross. Ye Sons and Daughters of the King, beloved and honored by the Most High, come to the Feast He lays before you. Come again, in the unity of the Spirit, to be guests at the Father's table, with the Son as the Host. Enjoy food for which earthly kings and heroes are not fit, but which, in His unfathomable love and mercy, He has prepared for you. Dine on His Body. Drink His Blood. Lift high the Cup of Peace. Be purged of your sins. The rebellion is over. You have won!

In + Jesus' Name. Amen.