Sermon for the Feast of the Holy Trinity, and the Visitation
May 31st, A + D 2026
John 3:1-17 and Luke 1:39-45
Our Redeemer and Our Savior's Lutheran Churches
Custer and Hill City, South Dakota
Video of the Readings through the Sermon availableHERE.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
What is God like? And what does God think about me? About us? These are important questions, which people often ponder at different moments of their lives. Today, on Holy Trinity Sunday, the Christian Church offers a comprehensive and definitive answer, using the Athanasian Creed.
Not everyone likes creeds. In the late summer of 2000, shortly after the Warners arrived in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where I attended seminary, we were headed to Peace Lutheran Church for the first time. I had been assigned to do my field work at Peace, assigned to help out at this local congregation as part of the seminary’s program for preparing men to be pastors. As we drove past the side of the church toward the parking lot, we saw a bare-foot young man with long wavy blond hair, wearing what looked like off-white pajamas, sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk, in what I think is called the lotus position. That was different. Later, after we had gone into the nave, he came in and sat down in the front pew.
Someone went up to give him a bulletin, and showed him the service we would be following in the hymnal. Everything seemed fine, until the pastor led us in the Nicene Creed. "I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in Jesus Christ…
Just then, there was an off-white flash down the center aisle, headed toward the exit, as the young man ran out of the sanctuary. A couple of people tried to catch up to him, but he was gone. Apparently, he did not like what the Creed declared about God.
which is also a day assigned to remember the Visitation, that day when the newly pregnant Mary went to visit her also pregnant cousin Elizabeth, up in the hill country of Judah.
I always enjoy any excuse to review the Christmas story in the summer time, so I added the Luke reading for the Visitation to our Holy Trinity readings. Along with the Athanasian Creed, we have heard a wide variety of expressions about who God is and what He thinks about us. They are all true and helpful, but they might also raise some questions, because they are very different from each other.
Creeds are specific, formal, precise expressions, worked out by theologians of the Early Church. Creeds offer summary statements about God, man, the Church and the Gospel. They serve to defend the faith against error, those lies of Satan that are always trying to corrupt the Truth of Christ.
Creeds are
definitive: God is this way, and not another.
True religion is this way, not that way.
I’ve always suspected this was why our barefoot visitor ran out of Peace
Lutheran Church that Sunday in 2000 – he did not agree with nor appreciate the
definitiveness of the Nicene Creed.
Which is too bad, because the Creeds, even the long and convoluted
Athanasian Creed, are Good News, because they tell the one true story of who
God is, and not only what He thinks of us, but also what He has done and is doing
to save us.
Creeds attempt to summarize the central message of the Bible, and so, along with defending against error, they are very useful for teaching the faith. But they were never intended to replace God’s Word, which is far richer and more varied, and strikes us in so many different ways. The LORD speaks to us in varied ways, because He knows how we are, and what we need in order to trust in Him.
Like our reading from Isaiah 6, the prophet’s vision of God enthroned in His heavenly temple, the Holy, Holy, Holy LORD, reigning in glory, surrounded by spectacular beings. Trying to picture what Isaiah describes will make you dizzy. The scene is fantastical, full of creatures we can barely imagine. Isaiah’s vision is awesome, but also fearful: Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips, …for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts! Isaiah, the honest sinner, fears for his life, because God’s holy glory is too great. And yet, the vision is also hopeful.
Guilt removed and sins atoned for, a burning purification delivered from the altar of heaven to Isaiah’s lips, the prophet is not destroyed. Instead, he is forgiven, and then hears that the Lord is seeking to assign a task: The LORD asks, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" The forgiven prophet is filled with life and hope. God needs to send a representative? Sounds great! Here am I, send me, please!
If you read on you’ll discover that Isaiah is exhibit one for why you should be careful what you volunteer for. Because the initial message Isaiah is given to proclaim to God’s people is one of condemnation and hardening, not mercy or deliverance. Not at first. In the end, of course, Isaiah is a preacher of the sweetest good news, a messenger of joy and restoration. But only after he first gives the sternest warnings about the punishment Israel’s unfaithfulness had earned. Sin must be named and dealt with, so that God’s grace and mercy can be revealed and received.
Isaiah sees the Glory of God, which is deadly to sinners, but he is saved from destruction freely, by pure grace. It is good and right that this salvation experience should make one eager to serve the LORD’s purposes in His mission.
Our reading from Romans chapter 11 is doxological, that is, it is the highest praise of God, praise made by proclaiming God’s character. It fits well as a response to the wonders Isaiah saw, for Paul’s doxology is lofty, superlative, beautifully glorifying God. Such high praise, like Isaiah’s volunteerism, is a proper response to God’s glory and mercy. God is great, amazing, and God’s people rightly shout this wonder from the rooftops.
But interestingly, our reading from Romans 11 comes after a long section where Paul teaches about election, and falling away. About the hardening of many biological children of Israel, and the mystery that Gentiles through faith in Jesus are grafted into the Olive Tree that is the true and eternal Israel, namely, the Christian Church. Many sons of Abraham reject their inheritance and are cut off because of their unbelief, while many Gentiles are grafted in by grace, through faith.
And yet, because salvation of both Jew and Gentile is by faith in the promises of Jesus, there is always hope in this life, always opportunity for anyone who has not heard, or who has wandered away. By repentance and faith, the Spirit is always able to re-establish, or plant for the first time new living branches into the trunk of the true Isarel. And so Paul proclaims: Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! … For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.
Our John 3 reading is secretive, a meeting at night, because the pharisee Nicodemus fears being seen talking with Jesus. Patient but also direct, Jesus reveals the wonderful gift of Baptism, heavenly re-birth by water and the Spirit. Jesus tolerates the spiritual blindness of this supposed teacher of Israel, as He pointedly but patiently reveals the blind spots of Nicodemus, and leaves him with more truth than he can grasp. I suspect Nicodemus went home with more questions than he started out with. But Jesus is teaching for the long term, and eventually the Holy Spirit would bring Nicodemus out of hiding to confess his faith in Jesus as the Christ, a confession revealed when he helped Joseph of Arimathea honor Jesus by burying His crucified body. Finally seeing Jesus lifted up on a Roman cross helped Nicodemus grasp the Good News that God loved the world in this way, by giving His Son to die for our sins.
Finally, the biggest outlier today: the heartwarming exchange between Mary and Elizabeth, and between the babies in their wombs, Jesus and His cousin, John the Baptist. How different from the heavenly throne vision, or the doxology of Paul, or the secret meeting between Jesus and Nicodemus. Karla found a picture for the bulletin that captures the joy of these two women, who have been caught up in God’s plans in a most intimate and wonderful way. The fearsome glory of Isaiah and the stern, detailed, fact-declaring Athanasian Creed seem very far from the happiness and homey-ness of the Visitation.
And yet, the same unchanging God is in the midst of all we have heard this morning.
The LORD God, mighty general of the heavenly armies, is also the infant growing in the womb of Mary, whose visit caused the ‘in-utero’ John the Baptist to leap for joy.
God is also the dying Son, lifted up on a Roman cross by the will of the Father, in order to draw all men to Himself.
Without the careful, detailed facts of the Creeds, the weakness of human understanding would soon twist or cast aside one aspect of God or another. And, without the full counsel of God, without a full picture of Who He is and what He thinks of us and does for us, we sinners will fall away.
To just focus on the sweetness of Mary’s pregnancy may seem nice for a while, but the Baby in her womb does not yet take away our guilt.
To only emphasize the majesty and power of God, will leave us without hope, stuck at Isaiah’s “Woe is me.” We also need to hear of the LORD’s willingness to come to us humbly, teaching in the night, hiding in a manger, rejected by the powers that be. To only speak of the Holy, Holy, Holy Lord who is unsearchable and inscrutable would be to leave the needy sinner without the faith to sing: God’s own child I gladly say it, for I am baptized into Christ.
And so, we discover the strand that binds together all the various words about God we have heard this morning: that strand is His mysterious love. A mystery is a truth that, with the Spirit’s help, we can believe, but we cannot quite fully understand. Our feeble minds can be brought to recognize the truth of mystery, and embrace it, but there are aspects which are beyond our full understanding. But we love the mysteries of the Bible, for they reveal and deliver God’s love to us.
Mysteries like the fact that God is One, and yet He is also Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three distinct persons, constantly loving each other, with love to spare for His favorite creature, which is us.
Or that the all-powerful God was conceived and born of the Virgin Mary, helpless and vulnerable, even as He ruled over all things.
Or that the One who is outside the created universe, the eternal LORD, chooses created things to reveal and deliver His love to us, removing guilt and sin with burning coals, and even with plain water, combined with God’s Word.
Or that the Holy, Holy, Holy One who deserves far more praise and honor than we could ever express, also loves to hear our prayers, also loves to draw us into His arms and comfort us like a mother, no, even better than a mother could ever love her baby.
Mysterious love. Indestructible hope for dying sinners.
To the Mysterious Love, to the one True God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, be all the glory, and to you be the mercy, forgiveness and joy, today, and forever and ever, Amen.
